Google has developed a new tool that helps users better manage voicemail and gives them transcripts of voice messages, as well as an archive of SMS text messages they have sent and received.
The application, known as Google Voice, will be available initially to users of GrandCentral, a service Google acquired in 2007.
However, as more Google Android mobile phones flood into the market, the service could become an indispensible tool for mobile internet users to keep track of their communications.
Google also said the service can be used to make low-cost international calls and to access the Goog-411 directory assist service.
“GrandCentral offers many great features, including a single number to ring your home, work and mobile phones, a central voicemail inbox that you could access on the web, and the ability to screen calls by listening in live as callers leave a voicemail,” the company said in the official Google blog.
Over the coming day, users of GrandCentral will receive instructions in their GrandCentral inbox on how to start using Google Voice.
It is understood that Google intends to make the service more broadly available across its networks in the coming months.
By John Kennedy
Pictured: the G1 mobile phone from HTC, the first phone to use the Google Android operating system
