I was quite pleased to find the other day that Google Latitude now worked on iPhone, although it’s a shame they had to go for a webapp rather than a native application. It seemed a little odd that Apple didn’t want Latitude in the app store, but there you go. Today, though, I was reading on TechCrunch that Apple has also decided not to approve Google Voice for the app store either. What’s going on?
I can’t pretend to have inside knowledge of the situation, but the reason for not approving Latitude was to “avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles”. I’d have hoped that people may be able to tell the difference, or at least make an informed choice as to which one they wanted. As for Google Voice? Well, other Google Voice-enabled applications have been pulled from the app store because they duplicate iPhone functionality (according to the TechCrunch article) so it’s a safe bet that this is the reason the official Google Voice app hasn’t been approved either. Speculation is circulating that the real pressure to take this route has come from Apple’s US carrier AT&T, who would view VoIP [Voice over Internet Protocol] applications as removing opportunities for them to make any profit from voice calls.
Now, I understand and support Apple’s right to decide what applications they publish through the app store – that’s entirely up to them – but is pulling previously approved apps a good idea? That looks very much like pressure is being put on Apple to me, and they’re bowing to it.
What’s the alternative then? Well, there’s always a different phone (I do quite like the look of the Blackberry Bold), or there’s jailbreaking your iPhone so that you can run a host of unapproved applications (and there are some good ones to be had on Cydia). Or… if it’s only Google apps you’re after… wait until they turn them into webapps!
What do you think about this? Is Apple overstepping the mark by pulling VoIP apps? Are they perfectly within their rights to do so? Has this changed your opinion of Apple? Let us know in the comments.
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