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Early Tuesday morning, Google announced the launching of a revamped Google Voice mobile site. This web app allows Google to circumvent restrictive factors like Apple’s App Store. It also makes the app relatively device agnostic. Though it is only currently supported by the Palm Pre and iPhones with OS 3.0 or higher, the app would work for any phone supporting HTML 5 in its browser app.

This web app has most of the functionality of native app you would download and install on your phone except it doesn’t have access to your contacts, though you can easily store your contacts inside Google Contacts. Being web-based, this also means you won’t take up any space on your phone with the app’s installation footprint.

Google Voice is the latest technology that I’ve been excited about. It has a lot of features and helps make a phone number yours instead of just something that the phone company loans to you. Google Voice allows you to have one phone number and direct where it goes, such as your office phone, your landline, your cell phone, or all three. From there, you still have more options and features to take advantage of.

Check out Google’s own quick description in this YouTube video (click to play):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Q9MJdT5Ds

[youtube m4Q9MJdT5Ds nolink]

Where Did This Come From?

Google Voice is a relaunch, currently in invite-only Beta, of the GrandCentral service Google acquired in 2007. Most of the previous GrandCentral features have survived the migration and seen additions. Former GrandCentral customers were also the first to have access to the Google Voice private beta.

Besides a brief stint with the Samsung Blackjack (returned within the first 30 days), the Palm Pre is my first smart phone. Despite that, I’m finding it very easy to use and intuitive. Here is a list of all the things I had to go look up though. Of course, if I had read the Palm Pre User Guide (PDF), the list would have been shorter.

To make sure we’re speaking the same language, here’s a diagram of the Pre’s keyboard so we can keep terminology consistent. (Click the image to make it bigger.)

I’m now the proud owner of a Palm Pre and I’m looking forward to being able to possibly develop some Apps for it.

The SDK for the Palm Pre is currently in pre-release and early access form only. There is also a huge NDA to go along with it.

The SDK makes use of Java, Safari (for debugging), and VirtualBox (for emulation) on Windows.

You can sign up for early access to the SDK at the Palm Developer site. There you can also read the first chapter of the developer’s guide for developing with the Mojo SDK.

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