5 ms·

Apple lied to public about Google Voice app rejection

117 points by mcantelon 17y ago

th0ma5 17y ago
ars has more with some follow up from apple... this seems to be some in-the-middle hand wringing... they haven't "rejected" it, but they haven't approved it, either... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-releases-confidential-details-of-google-voice-app-rejection.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-releases...
- mcantelon 17y ago
  A fairly transparent attempt to cover their ass, methinks.
  - pyre 17y ago
    My thoughts exactly. Another possibility is that this was some decision that someone made at Apple without Steve Jobs' 'permission' or 'guidance' while he was on leave and this new response is Steve trying to reverse what he thinks is a bad decision without making look like the company: (1) 100% relies on him for its success (i.e. without him they would fall apart) and/or (2) doesn't know what the hell it's doing.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    Cover their ass from what? They repeated exactly what they said before.
idm 17y ago
On the one hand, I feel like Apple can probably hide behind the terms of its app store and be sufficiently safe from any consequences. In the short term. Especially given the "duplicating dialer functionality" argument, this sounds a lot like AT&T has something to do with the rejection, even though Apple and AT&T adamantly deny that. So, for the slightly-less-short-term, it sounds like Apple has an (anti-)competition issue here... and if the FCC doesn't care about it (and they might) then the FTC surely will. After all, isn't "duplicate functionality" just a secret code for "competing with our features?"
- tptacek 17y ago
  Uh, no. Being arbitrary and protective about what products you allow people to build onto your own products is not inherently a restraint of trade. My cable set-top box is a Cisco product. There are lots of cool things I could do with it. It controls a critical communications channel for me. I can't even swap it out for a different component. Clearly the FTC does not care that Cisco and AT&T have colluded to prevent me from modifying it. When someone can convince the DoJ that Apple has seized control of the phone market, so that no viable alternatives exist to bring connected mobile software to market, Apple will be in a position to violate the law by capriciously denying applications. They're not there yet. People want to develop for the iPhone because it's the best, most popular platform. They don't have to.
  - josefresco 17y ago
    "Uh, no. Being arbitrary and protective about what products you allow people to build onto your own products is not inherently a restraint of trade." I think Microsoft would have a different opinion about that given their experience with the government in the 1990's and still to this day about what they allow and pre-install on THEIR own OS.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Microsoft had a monopoly. The DoJ went to huge lengths to prove Microsoft had a monopoly. You can't have a monopoly in "iPhones"; you have to have one in smart phones. Look at the numbers.
  - idm 17y ago
    Since you mention it, the FCC just might call _you_ the criminal if you tried to modify your cisco box... :) I won't claim to understand what's cooking in the DoJ or the FTC, but from my armchair, it seems like there's at least an argument here. I wonder if this has come up before with different platforms, where a competitor was denied access to the platform basically because they were a competitor. I can imagine this being the case with highly regulated industries (e.g. the TV/cable example), where the government is basically the gatekeeper of new competition, but here (i.e. Google Voice) it's not an issue of regulation.
jsz0 17y ago
I still think Apple is trying to build a more favorable deal with Google. From Apple's perspective they have the most widely used mobile web device in terms of actual usage. Nokia, RIM, etc sell more units but the iPhone dominates mobile usage. Google is already the default search & map provider for the iPhone delivering tens of millions of users and probably hundreds of millions of ad views to Google. Perhaps Google Voice could be a default also? What if Apple were willing to either build the functionality into the core software or simply pre-install the GV app on every iPhone? Maybe Apple feels like they are becoming the real mobile gateway to the Internet and might deserve a bigger slice of Google's pie? I'm not endorsing this theory as good business but it makes a lot of sense to me.
dandelany 17y ago
So much of the commentary surrounding this contoversy is analogies & thought experiments, presumably because there's not a lot of precedent for cases exactly like this. So here's mine - Imagine that, next week, Apple releases a new service called iVoice that all but duplicates the functionality of Google Voice. Transcribes voicemail & e-mails it, provides a full web interface (probably integrated with MobileMe), and obviously integrates seamlessly into a new iPhone OS update. If this happened, would it be a significantly different issue than Windows packaging IE with an install, but not Netscape? Can you imagine the hell that would break loose if Windows decided to become an IE-only platform? I suppose the big difference is that they make the hardware too - but there's no way Dell could get away with making a hardware modification that prevented you from installing certain software. Does Apple really get to make all the rules here?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- jsz0 17y ago
  Apple is not even close to a monopoly in cell phone hardware so there is quite a significant difference. There are many other alternatives to the iPhone. Apple rejecting Google Voice doesn't preclude anyone from getting an Android phone or BlackBerry instead. As long as that healthy competition exists Apple has nothing to worry about. If they were to build a monopoly in cell phone hardware they would have to drastically change their business practices or face the US DOJ and EU.
GHFigs 17y ago
Can someone point out the lie? This seems in line with Apple's prior statements to me. Yes, there is a difference between Apple saying they're still considering it and Google saying they rejected it--but that's expected, given that Google has no idea what is going on inside Apple. I don't see how that constitutes a lie. From Google's perspective, it has been rejected, but I see no claim that that rejection was said to be permanent and inclusive of all possible implementations of Google Voice for the iPhone (which is the real issue). Hence, from Apple's perspective, it's still an open question. It seems like people have chosen this one application to assume that all rejections are permanent, even though there are hundreds if not thousands of examples in the App Store of applications that were initially rejected for one reason or another, and later approved with or without modification.
mattmaroon 17y ago
Apple lies more than I did when I was in college and had two girlfriends. When they say one thing I've started betting the other way. When they said Jobs was fine, despite looking like Skeletor in a black mock turtleneck, I bought some puts. That worked well. If only I had known about it the first time they covered up his trying to cure cancer by eating more carrots, or when they said "no we're not making a phone".

117 points by mcantelon 17y ago

ars has more with some follow up from apple... this seems to be some in-the-middle hand wringing... they haven't "rejected" it, but they haven't approved it, either... http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-releases-confidential-details-of-google-voice-app-rejection.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-releases...

mcantelon 17y ago
A fairly transparent attempt to cover their ass, methinks.
- pyre 17y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Another possibility is that this was some decision that someone made at Apple without Steve Jobs' 'permission' or 'guidance' while he was on leave and this new response is Steve trying to reverse what he thinks is a bad decision without making look like the company: (1) 100% relies on him for its success (i.e. without him they would fall apart) and/or (2) doesn't know what the hell it's doing.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  Cover their ass from what? They repeated exactly what they said before.

idm 17y ago

On the one hand, I feel like Apple can probably hide behind the terms of its app store and be sufficiently safe from any consequences. In the short term. Especially given the "duplicating dialer functionality" argument, this sounds a lot like AT&T has something to do with the rejection, even though Apple and AT&T adamantly deny that. So, for the slightly-less-short-term, it sounds like Apple has an (anti-)competition issue here... and if the FCC doesn't care about it (and they might) then the FTC surely will. After all, isn't "duplicate functionality" just a secret code for "competing with our features?"

tptacek 17y ago
Uh, no. Being arbitrary and protective about what products you allow people to build onto your own products is not inherently a restraint of trade. My cable set-top box is a Cisco product. There are lots of cool things I could do with it. It controls a critical communications channel for me. I can't even swap it out for a different component. Clearly the FTC does not care that Cisco and AT&T have colluded to prevent me from modifying it. When someone can convince the DoJ that Apple has seized control of the phone market, so that no viable alternatives exist to bring connected mobile software to market, Apple will be in a position to violate the law by capriciously denying applications. They're not there yet. People want to develop for the iPhone because it's the best, most popular platform. They don't have to.
- josefresco 17y ago
  "Uh, no. Being arbitrary and protective about what products you allow people to build onto your own products is not inherently a restraint of trade." I think Microsoft would have a different opinion about that given their experience with the government in the 1990's and still to this day about what they allow and pre-install on THEIR own OS.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Microsoft had a monopoly. The DoJ went to huge lengths to prove Microsoft had a monopoly. You can't have a monopoly in "iPhones"; you have to have one in smart phones. Look at the numbers.
- idm 17y ago
  Since you mention it, the FCC just might call _you_ the criminal if you tried to modify your cisco box... :) I won't claim to understand what's cooking in the DoJ or the FTC, but from my armchair, it seems like there's at least an argument here. I wonder if this has come up before with different platforms, where a competitor was denied access to the platform basically because they were a competitor. I can imagine this being the case with highly regulated industries (e.g. the TV/cable example), where the government is basically the gatekeeper of new competition, but here (i.e. Google Voice) it's not an issue of regulation.

jsz0 17y ago

I still think Apple is trying to build a more favorable deal with Google. From Apple's perspective they have the most widely used mobile web device in terms of actual usage. Nokia, RIM, etc sell more units but the iPhone dominates mobile usage. Google is already the default search & map provider for the iPhone delivering tens of millions of users and probably hundreds of millions of ad views to Google. Perhaps Google Voice could be a default also? What if Apple were willing to either build the functionality into the core software or simply pre-install the GV app on every iPhone? Maybe Apple feels like they are becoming the real mobile gateway to the Internet and might deserve a bigger slice of Google's pie? I'm not endorsing this theory as good business but it makes a lot of sense to me.

dandelany 17y ago

So much of the commentary surrounding this contoversy is analogies & thought experiments, presumably because there's not a lot of precedent for cases exactly like this. So here's mine - Imagine that, next week, Apple releases a new service called iVoice that all but duplicates the functionality of Google Voice. Transcribes voicemail & e-mails it, provides a full web interface (probably integrated with MobileMe), and obviously integrates seamlessly into a new iPhone OS update. If this happened, would it be a significantly different issue than Windows packaging IE with an install, but not Netscape? Can you imagine the hell that would break loose if Windows decided to become an IE-only platform? I suppose the big difference is that they make the hardware too - but there's no way Dell could get away with making a hardware modification that prevented you from installing certain software. Does Apple really get to make all the rules here?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
jsz0 17y ago
Apple is not even close to a monopoly in cell phone hardware so there is quite a significant difference. There are many other alternatives to the iPhone. Apple rejecting Google Voice doesn't preclude anyone from getting an Android phone or BlackBerry instead. As long as that healthy competition exists Apple has nothing to worry about. If they were to build a monopoly in cell phone hardware they would have to drastically change their business practices or face the US DOJ and EU.

GHFigs 17y ago

Can someone point out the lie? This seems in line with Apple's prior statements to me. Yes, there is a difference between Apple saying they're still considering it and Google saying they rejected it--but that's expected, given that Google has no idea what is going on inside Apple. I don't see how that constitutes a lie. From Google's perspective, it has been rejected, but I see no claim that that rejection was said to be permanent and inclusive of all possible implementations of Google Voice for the iPhone (which is the real issue). Hence, from Apple's perspective, it's still an open question. It seems like people have chosen this one application to assume that all rejections are permanent, even though there are hundreds if not thousands of examples in the App Store of applications that were initially rejected for one reason or another, and later approved with or without modification.

mattmaroon 17y ago

Apple lies more than I did when I was in college and had two girlfriends. When they say one thing I've started betting the other way. When they said Jobs was fine, despite looking like Skeletor in a black mock turtleneck, I bought some puts. That worked well. If only I had known about it the first time they covered up his trying to cure cancer by eating more carrots, or when they said "no we're not making a phone".