One of the Google Voice applications available for Windows Phone was recently updated with some very welcome features that are specific to Windows Phone 8.  MetroTalk 3.0 by Pitsi now includes lock screen notification integration which means you can set one of the 6 notification icons on your lock screen to represent MetroTalk’s Google Voice notification count.  All you have to do is go to your Lock screen settings, tap one of the “quick status” notification icons, and choose “MetroTalk” from the list (after you’ve installed the app, of course.)  There are a few other notable features in version 3 as well.  For example, you can press a play button in the messages view in order to have the newest message read aloud to you.  The new dialer is updated with customizable speed-dial tiles which load your contact’s photo as saved in your people hub.  This makes calling people with Google Voice much easier, but wait, there’s more.  You can even pin instant contact speed dial live tiles to your start screen giving you one-touch calling capabilities.  There’s an option to set those speed dial live tiles to use whichever calling method you’d like (or to ask you every time).  Of course it still has push notifications, voicemail message playback, and just about all of the other features you’d expect from a Google Voice app.

Changelog – Version 3.0:
- New: Windows Phone 8 support
- New: Fast resume
- New: Multi-size tile support
- New: Lock-screen unread counter
- New: Text-to-speech
- New: Added ability to auto-dial a contact directly from the start screen (a new pin-to-start menu has been introduced in Call/Text)
- New: Additional folder pages can now be downloaded using a scroll-up gesture
- New: Option for enabling private mode, which hides any sender or content info for new notifications
- New: Option to disable vibrating on new messages
- Update: Added new icon for the Call/Text secondary tile
- Update: The account PIN is now hidden in settings
- Bug fix: Secondary tiles are working now on WP8

You can find MetroTalk in the Windows Phone Store for $1.49 for the no-ads version while MetroTalk Free is also available with ads.