While many Xoom users are patiently awaiting for the official Google Voice application for their Xoom, we’re happy to tell all you early adopters that you can “early adopt” Google Voice on Motorola’s Honeycomb tablet, courtesy of a little hacking by some intrepid Android devs. The guys over at XDA-Developers have done it again, and have managed to get the existing Google Voice app up and running on the Xoom.The application is the plain made-for-phones application, but it should work better than using the browser, or just not using it at all. We can expect the Honeycomb-optimized version of Google Voice to look much better by utilizing bigger displays, and have a couple of fragments thrown in as well. That said, users aching for Google Voice on their Xoom’s are likely just looking for it to work, but polished aesthetics wouldn’t hurt.
You don’t need to be rooted for the modified application to work for you, so all you need to do is download it, and install it from a file manager. Before the modified apk was released, some users were having success by using Titanium Backup on their Android phone, and then restoring Google Voice to their Xoom that way. This is a much more elegant solution, and the success rate is much higher.
Who knows, Google could be working on some killer features for the Honeycomb app, possibly making the Gizmo5 acquisition a bit more worth while.
That’s all she wrote, folks. We still have no time frame as to when we can expect the Honeycomb-friendly version of Google Voice to be released, but you can now at least work with some sort of application that works as it should. You’ll have to set up the app just as you would upon first installation, and do keep in mind that some users aren’t able to get it working at all.
Good luck!
[Via: Droid-Life, XDA]