Apple-Google Grapple
The big news from the Apple Orchard today is Apple’s claim that it did not reject Google Voice from the iPhone Apps Store. It’s a leading tech story at Bloomberg, the New York Times, Reuters, and the Guardian.
If you are interested in the the iPhone-Google Voice brou-ha-ha, you might get a kick out of glancing at all four stories. They all start with the same piece of information (this is from Bloomberg)
- Google’s application alters the iPhone’s features for making calls, sending text messages and accessing voice mails, Apple said today in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission.
Then they head off into different directions.
- The Guardian headlines it as a clash between Google and Apple.
- Bloomberg goes on the dig into Apple’s blocking VOIP applications because they compete with AT&T.
- The Times takes a brief look at Verizon’s and AT&T’s dominance of the wireless market in the United States (together more than 60% of the market).
- Reuters pretty much sticks to the barebones story, as befits a wire service.
Part of Apple’s claim is that Google Voice alters the “iPhone experience,” whatever that is. When I use an app on my cellphone, I don’t think of it as the “T-Mobile Dash Experience.” I think of it, rather, as browsing the web or editing a document or reading an email or placing a phone call.
Heck, even as a rabid Linux fanboy, as Linuxy rabid as any Mac user is Applely rabid (but at a lower cost), I don’t think I’m having “the Linux experience” as I type this blog post into a window in my browser. I think of it as “typing a blog post” (no, not even as “the blog post typing experience”).
All four versions of the story left me with this question: If Apple is still evaluating Google Voice, how do they explain removing it from the Apps store after offering it there?
It also left me with a lot of sympathy for the reviewers who must approve iPhone apps; they are busy. Reuters included this tidbit:
- It added: “We receive about 8,500 new applications and updates every week, and roughly 20% of them are not approved as originally submitted. In little more than a year, we have reviewed more than 200,000 applications and updates.”