Skype allows you to forward missed calls to a phone number so with your Google Voice number disable any sort of forwarding to any phones and put your Voice number down as the forwarding phone. BAM! There you go voicemail straight into our Gmail inbox and transcribed.

I also suggest enabling the caller announce feature which requires callers to announce their name as Skype can do some wonky things with the phone number/caller id in my tests.

Enjoy.

What’s New?

Crackdown 2 doesn’t bring alot new to the table. The game has the same city, the same powers, and pretty much the same gameplay mechanics. But what is new are the gadgets, enemies, and 4 player co-op. Oh and the city that was once pristine and shiny is now half destroyed and gritty. The new city dynamic alone is worth picking it up there’s this great nostalgic feeling when exploring the insides of destroyed buildings that once stood tall and glistening. Then theres the new gadgets like UV weapons, UV grenades, the Mag grenade, the glider, helicopters, and the accompaniment of weapons from the original Crackdown’s DLC are there aswell.

And while many joke around with Crackdown 1 and 2′s story or lack there of there is a new menace in Pacific City… vampire zombies. Yes Vampire Zombies. Thats where the new UV weapons come in and killing those “freaks” (as the fantastic Agency handler/announcer calls them throughout the game) in so many different ways is so so satisfying.

What’s Not New, or What’s Not Fixed?

Don’t get me wrong Crackdown 2 has plenty of problems for 1 the hand to hand combat is still weak and the targeting system has been crippled by not allowing switching of targets. The targeting system works in the same vain of Red Dead Redemption but instead of being able to quickly toggle through targets the system locks on to the closest object. It’s frustrated and extremely flawed. Then theres the camera system which works most of the time except for when you’re combatting alot of enemies at once with the flawed targeting system sometimes the camera rotates behind objects blinding you.

Final Verdict

Rent it, DLC will make you come back to this game I have no doubt about that but wait to buy it till it’s available for used.

//Simple Portfolio Code
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See wasn’t that simple? It’s the same code that’s powering the portfolio on this site.

I was up at 3:30 trying to pre-order I gave up and went back to bed. Got up around 6, tried again no luck. So when I got to work I ordered through AT&T and paid the $18 upgrade fee… and… my order went through. In case you’re curious I sprung for the 32gb Black iPhone4, a big step up from my old 8gb Black 3g. So the question remains; whose to blame here. It doesn’t look like there’s too much of a problem on AT&T’s end. While their site was slow I was able to complete my order.

The biggest question is when will we be able to pre-order the white model. My wife wants the white I don’t want her to have to wait what a month, 2 months to get a white model?

FaceTime

Of all the features iPhone 4 brings to the mobile space the one I was most disappointed with was FaceTime. I know what you’re thinking ZOMG how is that possible it’s so revolutionary! If you think FaceTime in its current iteration is revolutionary then you’re drinking too much of the Koolaid; even this self-declared Applefanboy doesn’t think that. Video chat on Smartphones has been around for some time in some rudimentary form or another. Case and point? AT&T Video Share, while it’s not exactly the same it’s not true “Video Chat” in so many ways it’s better than Apples offering because it allows 3g streaming. Sure Apple says thats coming but it should have been present at launch. AT&T hold the majority of the blame for stifling innovation but even then Apple is the one who partnered with them. The second element of all this is that Facetime is extraordinarily limited in its launch form. Apple is looking to make the FaceTime video platform a standard and that’s great and all except Apple already excels with video chat on an existing platform; AIM and iChat. Seeing as FaceTime is crippled and bound to WiFi at this point there is no reason whatsoever that it shouldn’t also be able to communicate with iChat. My complaints aside the potential for greatness is there because of the simplicity and the quality of the experience which is nothing less than Applesque. My hope is that iOS5 next year will really open up FaceTime or that a 3rd party will come along like Skype or maybe even AOL and give a better offering in the AppStore.

Spotlight

This of course isn’t so much a complaint against the iPhone4 as it is a complaint against shortsightedness and stubbornness of Spotlight in iOS4.

I get it, Apple and Google are at war, that’s fine. But don’t limit features purposefully just because you don’t want to throw a bone to Google. There’s no reason you can’t co-operate to bring the best of Google’s search ability to the best mobile platform the iPhone.  Apple has included two additions to Spotlight this year, Search Web and Search Wikipedia. It’s ridiculous. Apple either foolishly believes that search really isn’t happening on the mobile web in a big way or it’s just being stubborn. Either option is terrible. I search, A LOT. When I’m out looking for a restaurant to eat at or movie showtimes the first thing I do is goto Google. Let me get to the point I WANT LOCATION BASED SEARCH DAMNT! When I open Spotlight and I type in Pizza it should search around my physical location to provide relevant information to me. But beyond that the majority of my data doesn’t exist inside Apple’s included apps. I don’t use Notes I use Evernote. I would also like to search Goodreader, or maybe even Things. The point? Provide an API for search. Let apps plugin to Spotlight in iOS5 please.

Maps

Once again I get it you don’t want to give more and more to your competitor but I want to see Latitude in Google Maps; more importantly I want to see a lot of different information in Maps. Apple included api’s to add layers of data to maps in applications. Why are they not taking advantage of their own api’s. I can imagine so many great mash-ups whether it be Latitude, Foursquare, Twitter, whatever…

Conclusion

Those are some of my gripes but they’re outstanding for me because they aren’t oversights by Apple they are tacit omissions, missing on purpose for some excuse or another. Am I excited about the iPhone 4, hell yes. Will I be pre-ordering next Tuesday, OF COURSE. But Apple could have easily delivered some amazing unknown surprises and they didn’t. Heres to next June.