Google Voice may finally be approved for the App Store

After a saga that's lasted more than a year, it looks like Google Voice-enabled app GV Mobile may finally be approved for the App Store. Following recent announcements that gave developers far more transparency into the actual rules of Apple's App Store approval process, Google Voice developer Sean Kovacs mused on Twitter, "Since GV Mobile complies with all 110+ guidelines newly posted by Apple, it should get approved."

Kovacs tweeted a followup soon afterward: "Good news: I did get confirmation back from Apple that it will most likely get back in once I resubmit."

Following GV Mobile's rejection from the App Store, Kovacs posted the app for sale on Cydia, the App Store alternative for jailbroken iPhones. Over a year later, it appears that Apple's reforms of the App Store approval process will finally allow the app to be sold to non-jailbroken handsets. Once approved, Kovacs says he will sell GV Mobile for either US$1.99 or $2.99 and may also offer the app for free on a single day as a promotional method to get more users.

While not a VoIP service like Skype, Google Voice does allow US and Canadian users unlimited free calls and SMS, plus several more features that probably made carriers like AT&T unhappy the first time GV Mobile made its way onto the App Store. Now that GV Mobile seems to have finally jumped through the last hoop needed to get onto the App Store, iPhone users will have a powerful alternative to the carriers' "this many minutes and this many texts per month" plans -- and presumably, so will iPad 3G owners.

[Via AppleInsider]