Apple pulls Google Voice apps from iPhone store
Editor’s note: This is one more reason for e-book app developers to think about Android and other non-Apple platforms. – D.R.
Apple bashers now have one more thing to cheer about. At the behest of AT&T, Apple has pulled Google Voice applications from the iPhone app store on the premise that they “duplicate functionality” already present in the phone. (The same excuse was used to reject iPhone podcast-downloading apps shortly before Apple added that capacity itself.)
Google Voice, for those who have not used it, is Google’s new free voice-over-IP service that aims to do for telephony what Gmail did for e-mail: provide a single, permanent phone number you can use for as long as you wish no matter how many times you change landline or cellphone providers. You can set that single number to ring your landline, cell, and work phones simultaneously.
Google Voice offers optional call screening, and will even transcribe, e-mail, and text voicemails to you. It will allow you to make free domestic long-distance phone calls even if you do not have a long distance provider, by calling inbound to your phone and then conferencing you in as it dials your destination number too. (In case you couldn’t guess, I have Google Voice and am quite happy with it so far. If it will just add the ability to place or receive calls through Google Talk on my computer as well as my phone, I will be glad to drop SkypeOut entirely.)
Naturally, all this has the normal telephone companies running scared. So, it’s no surprise that AT&T has come down hard on such an app sharing space on devices on its network—and even though the Google Voice app was personally approved by one of Apple’s senior Vice Presidents, that wasn’t enough to save it from AT&T’s wrath.
(Update: It turns out John Gruber’s source got it wrong: AT&T was not behind the rejection after all.)
Of course, Google Voice still has a nicely-formatted web app that works very well in Mobile Safari—as well as apps for Blackberry and Android that are in no danger of rejection.
I like my iPod Touch; I use it a lot for e-mail, chatting, reading, twittering, and so on. Still, if I had the purchase price of it back today, I would probably buy something a bit more open instead.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I’m none too fond of Apple’s slow and opaque app approval process (especially for updates to existing apps), but I put this one down to AT&T rather than Apple. This ran afoul of the same business drivers that have thus far prevented legit 3rd-party “tethering” apps.
I doubt that *any* telco is going to be happy with allowing a phone-based service that competes directly with their own revenue streams (whether from texting, international calls, or tethering service). If they can find a way to prevent it, they will.
The problem, in Apple’s case, is that there’s a single point of contact where AT&T could apply the necessary pressure. A more open ecosystem would make that harder.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Great point, Stephen. I wonder, however, if Google will have some wireless service options that Apple won’t. If nothing else, we know about Google’s own interest in wireless. Thanks. David
August 24th, 2009 at 2:59 am
It turns out that AT&T actually wasn’t behind the rejection of the app. John Gruber’s source who said it was got it wrong, misinterpreting his source’s saying “Apple hasn’t rejected the app” to mean that AT&T had rather than that Apple was actually “still considering” it.
I’ve updated the article with the link.