Fresh iPhone Apps for Nov. 17: Google Voice, Twitter update, Sam’s Club

It’s here! Google Voice has finally come through the gauntlet of the Apple approval process to land in the App Store. It’s full of all the great features you can get from Goolge Voice on the web and it’s free. Oh, and there are a few other cool apps, too. Go ahead and take a look below.

Google Voice (iPhone) Free

After a long wait, an Apple lockout and an FCC investigation, Google has finally gotten its first-party Google Voice app through Apple’s hurdles and into the App Store. Go forth, and download.

As we guessed back in September, the app is free and includes push notifications for voicemail and text messages. It also includes all the cool functions native to Google Voice — free U.S. texting, voicemail transcripts and cheap phone calls. And any calls you make out of the app will carry your Google Voice number on caller ID: perfect for making calls incognito. Until someone Googles your number, that is.

Twitter update (iPhone) Free

The first-party Twitter app of the same name is, naturally, among the best Twitter clients on the iPhone, with a lot of great qualities and an easy to use interface. Its recent update adds one very cool and necessary feature — push notifications on @ mentions.

For the Twitter uninitiated, @ mentions are messages sent from a person that include your Twitter name. The @ symbol notifies Twitter that a person’s username is being referenced, turning the name into a link into that person’s profile. The Twitter app arranges all your @ mentions into a specific tab, and the update allows you to get notifications whenever someone speaks to you directly, mentions you in a Tweet, or sends you a private direct message.

Sam’s Club (iPhone) Free

It can be pretty good to be a Sam’s Club member. The stores offer discounts on all kinds of items and lots of the stores carry extra services, like car tire and battery changes, gas stations and photo developing. And it also offers this cool app, that lets you search for nearby stores by what services they offer and check to make sure the store you selected actually has the items you want.

Sam’s Club’s app has one other great built-in feature: you can take it into the store once you’ve found it and use your iPhone’s camera as a barcode scanner, instantly pulling up information about whatever you’re looking at. Forget having to track down a sales associate ever again — everything you need for your shopping trip is already in your pocket.

Latest from NewsReports