This news comes on the heels of Sean Kovacs’ GV Mobile Google Voice app being pulled from the store for “duplicating features.” Even though, TechCrunch relates, Phil Schiller himself personally approved GV Mobile and called Kovacs to apologise when its initial approval was delayed months ago.
TechCrunch suspects, probably correctly, that apps for Google Voice are being rejected at least in part through AT&T’s influence, since Google Voice lets you send free text messages and delivers cut-rate international calls—on top of making phone numbers even more meaningless—making it scary to AT&T in way like Skype VoIP over 3G. Either way, it seems obvious the Google Voice service is being targeted for extinction, at least as a native app on the iPhone.
Google plans to take the same route it was forced to take with Latitude on the iPhone—web app land. It’s an interesting switch for Google and Apple on the app front, actually. Google was noted for getting away with using private APIs in its Google Mobile app to make the voice search command work. Now Apple’s rejected two of its major apps in a row, in a way validating Google’s belief that web apps are the future anyway.
It seems somewhat silly, and a bit of a reach, to insinuate the rejections are signs of brewing hostilities between Apple and Google, but you have to figure if there weren’t any behind the rejections, they’ve at least got to be causing some anxiety by now.
Whatever the reasons, it sucks, and as Jason Kincaid says, what’s really troubling about this rejection is that it appears that “Apple is now actively stifling innovation.” And the whole black box app approval process doesn’t exactly alleviate that sinking feeling either. After all, if Google doesn’t stand a chance, how does anybody else? [TechCrunch]
james-mac
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 4:21 PMDoesn’t Microsoft own Apple?
Phillip Balmer gets his revenge against Google any way he can.
matt
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 4:32 PM” Now Apple’s rejected two of its major apps in a row, in a way validating Google’s belief that web apps are the future anyway.”
no, thats not correct, avoiding apple’s locked, controlled and restricted app store through any means necessary is the way of the future, web apps just happens to be the only way of doing this without jailbreaking. just because apple has royally screwed up native apps doesn’t mean that web apps is the only hope for everything.
(go on, tell me i’m wrong cause “but its sooo popular, and there are so many apps, and its like totally awesome!!1!!1!1″, communists.)
Shane
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 7:37 AMMatt, I think you’re right. Actions like these only increase the chances that people will choice to jailbreak their phones becasue it frees them from the stupidity that is the app approval process.
I’d like to see a “siging” process where apple puts a nice rubber stamp on the app saying that it doesn’t do nasty things to your phone and leave it at that…so I can install what I want and, as a developer, distribute to whom I want…
The Apple app store is the only bad thing about the iphone
ps – I don’t live in the US, I don’t us AT&T, why the hell am I been punished – teathering anybody??!!