"Strikes back?" I don't think anybody at Apple is going to be upset by this, given that they publicly recommended it: Google is of course free to provide Google Voice on the iPhone as a web application through Apple’s Safari browser, just as they do for desktop PCs, or to provide its “Google-branded” user experience on other phones, including Android-based phones, and let consumers make their choices. -- http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/
I think Google is "striking back" in the sense that it's planting the Google Voice 'seed' while Apple probably wants to keep it off the iPhone entirely. If each company had an internal monologue, I think it would go something like this:
Apple: "We don't want Google Voice on the iPhone, period. But we'll publicly tell Google they're fine to put it on as a handicapped web app, because we couldn't stop that anyway, and it makes us look like we don't have anything against it. But we do. We are worried that Google will convert the iPhone into a shell for its own products, which is why we're talking to other search engines and are (probably) building our own Maps app."
Google: "Fine. We'll build a web app, and it will be sort of shitty. But we'll keep updating it with the latest HTML5 tricks and make it pretty damn good for a web app — far better than most other companies could do anyway. We're going to release Google Voice to the public later this year, and iPhone users will be able to try it for themselves with the web app. When they find out that the experience would be even better if Apple would approve our native app, maybe we'll see a grassroots movement. Maybe not. Either way, we're keeping our best native apps on Android."
To anyone who thinks that Apple is worried about the user experience and reproducing core functionality, that's all misdirection. There are plenty of applications that similarly reproduce some of the iPhone's core functionality. There are a few apps that do EXACTLY what Google Voice does, but are targeted at a different market. Apple is trying to keep its control over the iPhone for competitive reasons, not because they're worried about user confusion.
Neither Apple nor Google will ever comment about this on the record.
They both did, in response to an FCC inquiry. Your theory depends on both companies not just lying but lying to the government and lying to the government in a very peculiar way that doesn't actually give either of them any kind of advantage over telling the truth.
Go back and read Apple's response to the FCC. It may not have any outright lies, but there's plenty of stuff in there that is questionable. They say some things that are factually incorrect about the way Google Voice works, and they try to claim that they don't fully understand the service. If you buy that, so be it. I don't.
There are countless apps on the App Store that “duplicate” the iPhone’s functionality in some form, and the notion that users might get confused about the apps is ridiculous too — after all, users have to manually install these apps.
This is not very insightful. Apple obviously did not reject the application based on what is shares in common with applications it didn't reject. So why not actually examine the differences? Moreover, why not examine the differences as referenced by Apple concerning their own actions?
For instance, Apple's claim that: "The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail."
Is this true? Are there other, accepted applications that do this? Does this constitute a duplication of functionality that may confuse users?
TechCrunch doesn't appear to have even attempted to answer any of these questions.
Google voice only handles your voicemail if you explicitly set it up through the google voice settings interface. It involves dialing a special number from your phone that google gives you. And if I recall correctly Mike Arrington did explain this in at least one of the posts covering the whole fiasco.
We also wrote quite a few other stories about the situation that you should be able to pull up using the Google query below. For more on applications that are similar to Google Voice, check out the stories on Line2.
In that case I don't really understand your point. There are lots of ways to send messages other than through Apple's visual voicemail if you want to set them up. Yes it's true that you can have Google Voice handle your voicemail for you if you go through a set of steps to set it up.
I don't own an iphone, but I imagine there is a native email application that Apple wrote. Let's say you have mac mail, and are popping your mail to your phone. I also imagine there are plenty of other email clients, which notably Apple has not rejected. If you then download and configure one of these other clients to pop your email is that duplicating a native function of the phone? Is it confusing? I argue no, and apparently Apple agrees since said apps certainly exist in the App Store.
Choosing to consume your data in a way other than Apple intended seems to be the problem with Google Voice. The argument of confusion by duplicating functionality is patronizing to users and pretty thin.
They say some things that are factually incorrect...
Then cite the facts, as said before. Denigrating people based on what they "buy" (when your argument hinges on "reading between the lines") is not convincing. You may be right, but at this rate I'll never know, because you have a long way to go between connecting "questionable" to the elaborate intrigue you described before. That is what I don't buy, because I honestly don't see any fact-grounded reason why the simple explanation isn't true, and you haven't offered any.
It'd be a waste of time for both of us to try and shoot holes in each others' speculations, because it just leads to more and more speculation, e.g. if Apple didn't want to permit things like Google Voice even as a web app why did they develop the JavaScript hooks it depends on? There is no response to that sort of question doesn't spawn more questions than it answers.
