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Apple Kills Google Voice Apps On the iPhone
molnarcs writes "Apple pulls Google Voice-enabled applications from its App Store, citing duplication of functionality. The move affects both Google's official Google Voice and third party apps like Voice Central. Sean Kovacs, main developer of GV Mobile, says that he had personal approval for his app from Phil Shiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, last April. TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid suspects AT&T behind the move."
According to Jon Gruber, who has reliable sources inside Apple, AT&T pulled their weight to make this happen.
jailbroken iPhone with no official warranty or support
Who are you, the writer for "Reefer Madness"?
If you need warranty work done, you simply un-jailbreak it (or restore it from scratch). And not even that is necessary for an obvious hardware flaw.
It doesn't void your warranty.
Unlocking is a different matter - but that also has zero to do with Cydia and alternate App Stores.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Crappy hardware from HTC? What's crappy about it? Crappy software, sure. Windows Mobile really sucks and needs a lot of work but at least it is easily hackable and upgradeable. HTC are assholes about providing drivers for their GPU chips also. Xda-devs help a LOT in making these phones as good as they can be. I can install any damn software I want to using a .cab file that I can download on the internet.
The HTC hardware, on the other hand, kicks total ass IMO. I consider it FAR superior to anything else I have used. Of course I probably have different criteria that I am looking for in a phone.
I want a large, high resolution touchscreen AND a large, comfortable hardware keyboard in a slider or clamshell design. Standard SD card slot for storage and USB port for charging / data transfer are absolute requirements. I also want 3G/HSDPA, Bluetooth, GPS, and perhaps FM radio. 3.5" audio jack is nice to have, too. My HTC Kaiser was near-perfect hardware IMO, and the new Touch Pro 2 is much closer to the mark, since it is higher-res and has 3.5" audio jack in the US versions. Wish it had physical d-pad keys on the face, but oh well, thats the trade-off for a bigger screen. Right now I'm 90% sure my next phone will be the Touch Pro 2 from Sprint.
Ah, but you can use Google Voice to do text messaging, and if you configure it right, those messages never go through AT&T's SMS system, so they can't charge you for them.
SMS is gold, especially when they can charge you--what is it?--$10/mo for 500 texts. They don't want to lose that by having your SMS data going over the flat-rate data plan. You know, because SMS data are not bits like the 3G network bits, no way they could ever change that. Except, of course, Google has.
I love all the Apple bashing; I'm sure Apple could care less, but AT&T sees a threat, and for the time being, they're the exclusive provider and they set at least some of the rules.
Just the other day, the CEO of AT&T indicated that he knew which way the wind was blowing, and that he didn't expect the lucrative exclusive deal to last forever; you'd think that they'd try a little harder to make iPhone users *want* to stay with AT&T...
The CB App. What's your 20?
Crappy hardware coming from HTC? Are you nuts?
Let's compare my HTC Touch HD (which is an older device) to the newest iPhone 3GS:
Size: 115 x 62.8 x 12 mm vs 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm - no real difference
Weight: 133 grams vs 146 grams - iPhone wins
Display size: 3.8" vs 3.5" - Touch HD wins
Display resolution: 480x800 vs 480x320 - Touch HD wins big time
RAM: 288 MB vs 256 MB - Touch HD wins
Internal memory: 512 MB vs 8GB or 16GB: iPhone wins
Memory card: microSDHC up to 32GB vs none at all - Touch HD wins big time again (and you get a 8GB or 16GB card with every new Touch HD)
Camera: 5 MP with video and 1.5 MP forward camera vs 3 MP with video - Touch HD wins
Battery: 1350 mAh removable battary vs 1219 mAh non-removable battery - Touch HD wins big time
HTC has managed to put a bigger, higher resolution screen, microSDHC drive, a bigger, removable battery, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a higher resolution camera into a package of same size and nearly same weight as iPhone 3GS (thus negating the arguments that a removable battery and a memory card drive add so much to the device size). How is it crappy now?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap