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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."
Don't worry, you can still use it with Cydia!!!
Also on appulo.us
music lover since 1969
Alien vs. Predator
How long can Apple keep this up? The iPhone app store has been a great thing, but slam after slam of bad press against it is slowly turning the opinion of the technically inclined. If they don't do something soon, they're going to end up like Sony circa 2007.
Wow, that's pretty scary. I'd hate to have developed software for a platform, only to find it removed from the platform a few months later as an anti-competitive action because the company that owns the platfrom decides to release their own versions of the same thing. That could put me out of business! And I'm sure the developer agreement with Apple gives them full rights to do this. Yikes. Well, I'm one of the few around here that doesn't have an iphone anyway.
Why on earth geeks continue to view Apple as a Good Company boggles my mind. They've shown themselves time and time again to be evil, controlling, and dedicated to being as closed as possible. This is just the latest in a long, long line of anti-customer things they've done. Why do people continue to support this behavior?
Gratuitous rant for the day.
Fuck you Steve Jobs, you've been hanging out with Gates too much.
Hope is the currency of fools
So.. I'm a little confused here. There's all sorts of talk about Google Voice competing with the iPhone (at least on some other news sites that have published this) Not sure I understand the comparison. Google Voice for phone calls uses at&t minutes, which don't cost Apple. Its simply call forwarding. This is not VOIP folks. Google Voice SMS doesnt cost Apple either. There are PLENTY of other free SMS apps on the App Store already, why not Google Voice? Voicemail transcriptions surely don't duplicate functionality of either Apple or at&t. As far as alternative visual voicemail, again there are already apps on the App Store for that. (ie. YouMail). Can someone please enlighten me how this is due to Google trying to compete with Apple, or even at&t?
According to Jon Gruber, who has reliable sources inside Apple, AT&T pulled their weight to make this happen.
... the App Store sucks. This is yet another example of why it's bad that for a given platform, you are required to get your software from a manufacturer approved repository. Don't get me wrong, repositories are great. But not if you're forced to use them, and especially not when the repository owner manipulates the software selection to suit themselves. I smell an anti-competitive lawsuit in the making here.
So if AT&T can get an app banned (as Gruber says is the case), what happens later on when the iPhone is not tied to any one phone company in the U.S.? Carrier specific stores? That smells like the stuff people dislike about Verizon... but Apple can't let multiple companies triangulate on what apps they like.
Also interesting is that AT&T seems to allow some apps on other phones they move to keep off the iPhone, it could be because there are just so many more iPhones on AT&T they are really worried about the data load (which would explain why Slingbox is WiFi only on the iPhone but works over 3G on the blackberry).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple, making Android look good since 2008.
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.
If this bit is true and documented, then sue for lost development time. Apple gave assurances they wouldn't do something, Google committed resources, then Apple did it. Whatever Apple's reasoning here for changing their minds, they can't yank the football away any more than a contest promoter could decide not to give awards to a winner.
I bought mine in 2004 and I have to pull out the antenna to use it. Works great and only costs me like $10/month. I don't get all the hype with cell phones these days. I have a BB at work and i would never pay the outrageous fees to own one myself. As for developers, are there not other platforms that can be profitable for you that don't have Sybil as the gatekeeper. Why would you subject yourself to the stress.
TechCrunch is citing AT&T is behind it, yet they have absolutely no evidence to indicate that. It is in both Apples and AT&Ts interest to keep the Google Voice app off the iPhone. TechCrunch is just blaming AT&T so they can keep their Apple fanboyism going.
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
Apple: Look, you're suffocating me, we need to take a break.
Google: What's wrong baby? We were doing so well together!
Apple: I TOLD YOU! I JUST NEED SOME SPACE! YOUR APPS ARE ALL OVER MY ROOM!
Google: Fine... Don't come crying to me when your MAPS stop working!
The call still gets initiated from the phone over the AT&T voice service(same with SMS over GV). GV just becomes a switching service that reroutes the call. GV is NOT a Voice-Over-IP app that sends the voice calls through the data IP plan of the iphone. It might get around international calling rates though since the call is really to GV and not to the direct party(I don't know about that part).
It's always nice when companies go and make the case for why closed platforms suck with no effort required on anybody elses part. Apple is just another example. Having a gatekeeper say what you can and can't run on your phone like this was never a good idea, and now we're seeing why.
Apple fanboys will put up with anything, of course. I hope this type of nonsense gets through to the more sensible people out there though.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I'm sure it's occurred to more than a few of us that citing "duplication of functionality" is a gigantic fucking can of worms.
And Apple opened it.
In a word? NO. Apple+AT&T are clearly operating under their own agenda and any agreements, past, present and future, are subject to change without notice or compensation. You will not be able to depend on them any more than you can depend on Amazon not to delete your books from your Kindle.
This is a risk of putting yourself under the control of companies like these -- they might seem cool now, but are quite subject to change without notice or compensation. The only protection anyone might enjoy is legislative or judicial relief. We have had such relief in the past and it has worked well for "we the people." We seriously need to break the agreement between AT&T and Apple as well as other handset exclusivity agreements along with all manner of other problems associated with mobile phone technologies.
The continuous merging and dealing among technology companies are in need of deeper scrutiny as at every turn they seem to limit or control technological advancement for their own anti-competitive and price-controlling purposes.
Google got rejected. GOOGLE. That is big ^^ and not a yawn you tit.
Google Voice (Grand Central rebranded) is a wonderful service. Not for the reason many tout - its bevy of useful features. It's incredibly valuable because it provides a virtual phone number which redirects to whatever phone number you have now. Change carriers or move out of their service area? No problem; just change the forwarding phone number in GV and anyone who calls your GV number still is calling you.
This is something that is also valuable with email - Mail.com used to offer free redirection for life but they've since gone back on their promise and now charge for their service. Imagine having an email address that is yours forever - one that simply redirects mail to whatever account you currently have. Change providers? No problem; change your address at the redirector and nobody has to change the email address they reach you at.
Anyone who has changed phone numbers or email addresses knows what a hassle it can be - these redirection services provide a solution to this problem.
Hey, AT&T and Apple - what me, a customer, wants is to have a phone number and email address that is mine - one that will be mine for as long as I want - no matter if my email or phone provider changes or goes out of business. That's what Google Voice provides and AT&T does NOT. Phone number portability is largely a joke as anyone who's tried to keep a phone number knows. Portability doesn't help if you move to a different area code, anyway.
Phone companies like to lock in their customers - one of the ways they do this is through the fear they instill in their customers. If you change providers, you'll have to tell everyone you know that you've got a new phone number. Rather than deal with that nuisance, people accept yet another fee increase and stay with the same provider. This isn't customer service at all - it's corporate service where they inconvenience you to insure that the corporation makes more money. That's why they sabotage "portability" in any way they can - and it's why AT&T doesn't want Google Voice on the IPhone.
And they'd really prefer that you didn't realize that if your phone number is in one area code and your Google Voice phone number is in a different area code that you could be receiving local calls from a much larger area. In areas like Silicon Valley this can make a huge difference in the ability of people to contact you.
Stuff like this is why I do not have an IPhone - it's a nice piece of hardware but since it's tied to AT&T it's not for me. I got away from AT&T years ago and never looked back.
Google voice provides unlimited incoming AND outgoing SMS for free. I've been using it on my blackberry because I have unlimited data, but no SMS plan (costs me 25 cents to send a single message). I'm not familiar with the AT&T plans, but if SMS packages are optional add-ons then they would certainly lose money as people realize they have unlimited texting through their google phone number.
Better known as 318230.
How's Hans doing right now?
Ya know?
NO SIG
As TFA mentions, Apple pushed the recording industry to accept the $0.99/track, even when they weren't happy about it. When the iPhone was being developed, and Apple was shopping around for a carrier, AT&T made a significant amount of concessions that other carriers would never have made: modify the voice mail system, lack of network branding on the phone, complete control by Apple over the design of the phone, etc. It can be said that a lot of this would not have been possible without Steve Jobs at the helm, with his influence and charisma telling these other companies that *they've* got to work *with* Apple, not the other way around, if they want a slice of the pie.
Now it seems AT&T is walking all over Apple and Apple is just letting them. Is it because Jobs is absent from the spotlight, and he's lost his influence? What is going on that makes them cower in the corner and submit to AT&T? If anything, it should be the other way around. AT&T would be *nothing* without the iPhone, and Apple would be able to go to any other carrier and have them begging at their feet (contracts notwithstanding).
On a completely different note, I wonder when this sort of thing will stop? Carriers have finally let handset developers do what they want, because they realized that companies like Nokia and Palm and Apple make better phones than Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile does, and that they shouldn't inject themselves into the process. This is all thanks to Apple. But these networks are still protective of their cashflow model, trying to use their relative exclusivity and propriety to keep relatively cheap methods of communication off. They charge for SMSes, even though these things actually, *literally* don't cost them anything (the packets in which SMSes are sent are sent or received regardless of whether or not there's an SMS in there) -- especially US carriers. The cost of text messaging in the US far outweighs any other market, for no reason other than it's a million dollar cash cow annually. They keep the Internet crappy, slow, and unreliable so that users can't use it to do anything important, other than get email or browse Facebook, because God forbid you should be able to make a phone call... then that keeps them from charging you $0.40/min when you go over your minutes; or charging you exorbitant monthly fees for voice time. When will all of this change?
Something has to remove their stranglehold over the industry. I get that they want to protect their business model, but they've had it for close to 40 years now in one form or another, and they're stifling change and innovation. And I suppose we can only hope that by doing this, new players will come to market that will be the death knell for the old timers that can't or won't change. And technically, we don't even need a player; all we need is one of the current players to change their tune. Remember the unlimited plans? None of them had it until T-Mobile or Sprint (not sure which) introduced it, and then suddenly everyone jumped on the boat. The first company took an awful big risk to do something like that, but in the end, it paid off.
Let's hope it happens again.
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
I can install anything I want with no DRM whatsoever. I can even ssh into the phone. The applications are written in plain old Javascript, even the built-in ones, so they can be trivially modified. The Pre is a hacker's dream phone.
It'll be a cold day in hell before I use a closed phone again.
The Google Voice app is an official application. GV Mobile was not. The latter was pulled from the market yesterday; the former was rejected today.
Interesting test coming up in EU/UK: the "iTunes killing" streaming music service Spotify has announced that they've submitted their client app for the iPhone/iPod Touch to Apple. Cannily, they've got this all over the press which must have rather put Apple on the spot(ify).
Spotify is nothing revolutionary but its well executed, easy to use and has a pretty good range of music from pop to classical (minus the usual digital hold-outs: Floyd etc.) and seems to have been very well marketed (starting with a Google style not-very-exclusive invitation/introduction system). Its been getting to quite a wide audience (not your usual pop download monkeys). If Apple reject this, then the App Store issue is going to be News in Europe. Could be fun.
Looks like mobile apps are part of their business model: the basic desktop service is free with (not too bad) ads or 10 quid a month for ad-free, but you're going to have to subscribe to use the mobile version. That'd probably put me off, but we shall see...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Apple is truly evil these days.
What's sad is all sense and reason totally falls away when it comes to Apple.
Everyone bitches about Microsoft, but as soon as Apple does it, ohhh its all okay! Its okay BECAUSE ITS APPLE!
WTF people...
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
If you are just some "In my spare time," kind of author, ok maybe you don't care so much. You get the iPhone SDK and make apps and if they get rejected, oh well shit happens. You are just in it for fun and maybe some side money.
This is not the case for real development studios. They are not going to go and spend the money to retrain people on a new development model, and then spend a bunch of man hours bringing an app to a platform, if that app risks arbitrary rejection. They are going to want to know BEFORE committing the resources that it is going to be allowed.
In particular, this could really hurt the iPhone games market. For games on a mobile device to ever really take off, they are going to have to improve in quality. You need things like Nintendo DS games on there. Well, that can be done, but only likely by big game development houses. At this point, EA is at least trying it to some extent. However, game companies are NOT going to invest the time in a platform if they might get their shit pulled because someone at Apple or AT&T got whiny.
Now this case is a big problem since Google got prior approval. That tells the game makers that even if you get the ok, your product still can be pulled. There is literally no way for you to be safe. That could quite easily convince them that the iPhone is a market just not worth developing for. Stick with the PC, consoles, handhelds and so on, screw the iPhone.
While the idea of filtering content for a store is not new, this idea of retroactively shit canning apps for arbitrary reasons, after approval is. You'd better believe that if EA talks to Sony or MS about publishing a game on the console, they game will be cleared for release and that will not be revoked after the fact. Yes, there are licensing requirement that have to be met, but you meet those and you are good. Someone doesn't decide a few months later "Know what? We don't like that, so you can't sell it anymore."
The carriers think that voice is different than data.
The Internet (and service providers like Google / Skype etc) think that
voice is just another kind of data. (Though a bit of priority for the
packets to reduce latency would be splendid.)
This is just a replay of the old Bellhead vs Nethead battle.
I'm pretty sure the Netheads are going to win eventually, by the
logic of the usefulness of having general data networking to every
device.
But there will be much gnashing of teeth between here and there.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Oh, fuck this. Stripping the character. Damn /.
We'll go with "!>" then.
You know, you could avoid the whole problem by expressing your thoughts with actual words instead of misappropriated mathematical symbols which don't really fit the sentence you're trying to form...
"Is greater than", as used in math, does not have the same meaning as "is better than". The fact that the readings can take the same meaning is somewhat irrelevant: it's the same sort of thing as using an image of paw-prints in a GUI to represent "pause" - the conceptual link isn't as direct as it should be.
So, please, leave magnitude comparison to domains where they have some meaning... Elsewhere, use words.
Bow-ties are cool.
Kind of. As a non-iphone-user, it's still interesting to see how far Apple will go before the realise they're working against their hard-won customer loyalty. On the other hand, customers complaining about DRM when they specifically went and bought something that was DRM'd is pretty dumb.
Apple's new advertising slogan.
Should sue Apples ass.
Or
It's still interesting to see how far "ooh, that's shiny and popular - I must buy it" crowd will go before the realize Apple is working against their hard-earned money. On the other hand, as far as they keep on giving money to Apple, Apple's not giving fuck about few who complain is pretty obvious.
That might get it's attention.
I am using a 6 yr. old computer, a 6 year old cell phone and a basic flat-screen TV w/ a $99 cheapo surround system.
And I'm just as happy with the results today as I was 6 yrs. ago when I bought most of it.
I just don't understand why people subject themselves to the BULLSHIT these companies impart on their customers just for a few SMALL incremental improvements in service. I won't even get into how much more money it would have cost me to stay "caught up" with so-called "improvements".
The only problem with the iPhone...is apple. I swear I love everything about it...it's beautiful. If only apple would quit trying to kill it.
Nokia N810/N800 beat both of these. Why?
No AT&T.
No data plan costs.
No monthly bill.
800x480 screen
External speaker built-in
External mic built-in
Video Camera - built-in (crappy)
Linux.
1,000s of Linux apps just run.
9 days of powered on battery, not 2.
WiFi.
Linux. Debian apt-get install
You don't need to "hack" your device to gain root access.
Skype, SIP client, Claws, GNUmeric, OpenOffice, ssh in and out, VNC, GPS, SDHC, 1800mA batteries that you can easily swap yourself. No need to violate a warranty to replace it yourself.
No money goes to Microsoft!
$220. Cheaper now.
I have to admit I love my 3G iPhone, and I enjoy the simplicity of the App store, but even I've had more than my fill of AT&T (and Apple)'s regressive business practices in this arena. Although the 3GS looks impressive, I've promised myself that I won't buy another phone locked into the AT&T network (which spends more time trying to enforce a monopoly on services it just doesn't do well in the first place), and if I buy a piece of hardware that CAN do something interesting (and legal), I expect that it should be ALLOWED to do it. ï So yes, the iPhone is a great platform -- for both daily use and development. But the companies dictating how it can and can't be used need to stop cutting their customers off at the knees. Because frankly, although I love my phone, I'm already wondering what I'll get when my contract is up next year.
For sake of argument, in a twisted way, I can see Apple pulling the app from iPhone use, but what about us iPod Touch users? There is ABSOLUTELY NO DUPLICATION of application here on the iPod Touch. It's adding functionality that is simply not available on the iPod Touch.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!