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Apple, Google, AT&T Respond To the FCC Over Google Voice
We've recently been following the FCC's inquiry into Apple's rejection of the Google Voice app. Apple, Google, and AT&T have all officially responded to the FCC's questions: Apple says they haven't actually rejected the app, they're just continuing to "study it," and that it may "alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging, and voicemail." The interesting bits of Google's response seem to have been redacted, but they talk a little about the approval process for the Android platform. AT&T claims it had "no role" in the app's rejection and notes that there are no contractual provisions between the two companies for the consideration of individual apps. Reader ZuchinniOne points out a report in The Consumerist analyzing some of the statements made in these filings, as well as TechCrunch's look into the veracity of their claims.
Apple says they haven't actually rejected the app, they're just continuing to "study it," and that it may "alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging, and voicemail."
So Apple is holding Google's app in limbo until they have time to reverse engineer the functionality and release it as native functionality of the iPhone?
Someone is lying, this is why.
1. Apple has stated that they aren't sure how the Google voice application works, is it VoIP, telephone, ect, ect
2. AT&T's contract with apple explicitly states they must be contacted when a VoIP app is being approved.
3. Both parties claim to of had not contact with each other, a violation of AT&T ToS for Apple
I smell something funny......
btw. The application is not VoIP, its a telephone route, which would cut into AT&T's outrageous international rates
for phone calls (however have no affect on local call's price); I only state the above because Apple claimed it
could possibly be VoIP (even though its easy to find information on how it works, they are just buying time)
and we know apple should of immediately contacted AT&T if this was even a possibility.
Heh, that's a funny situation for Apple to be in. I guess Apple is no longer interested in just selling you the hardware and a good OS, they want to sell you a substantial number of the applications as well. I seem to recall Microsoft engaging some similar behavior awhile back, something about web browsers and being able to remove them.
I just got an ipod touch recently (it was free with rebate) and frankly, I find that Apple is unnecessarily confining the device. I've been using their laptops and desktops for years, with OS X, I've always thought that it was an incredible benefit to them to have it run on BSD, run MS Office, run Photoshop, run X11 so I can run GIMP and just about every other linux app out there, etc. etc. etc. With the phone, they confine you so much that if it weren't for the possibility to jailbreak it, I probably would have given it away to a family member.
The point is that, as a long time Apple user, I'm really starting to get a little bothered by their increasing amount of attempts to force me to use their stuff the way they want me to rather than the way I want to use it. That sort of behavior earned MS my distrust long, long ago.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Just like the RIAA, the MPAA, and other such entities, the cellular and phone companies are dinosaurs of an early technological age, and they are holding us back.
In Europe, you can use any phone on any carrier. You can effectively stream audio, video, and whatever else you like and the carriers don't really care. You do get unlimited 3G flat rates for under $30/month.
The only major phone that doesn't work that way? You guessed it: Apple's iPhone.
Far from freeing the US market from SIM locking and carrier lock-in, Apple is trying to export the evil of the US cellular market to Europe.