“It’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover-up” – Washington saying, originally referring to Watergate
Google Voice continues to serve as the catalyst for a major conflict around the rights of cell phone app developers and customers that will likely, in the end, serve to open up these platforms.
The FCC ’s letters of three weeks ago have now received responses from Apple, AT&T and Google. The letters asked a series of questions about the rejection by Apple of Google’s iPhone app for Google Voice. The answers are little short of amazing.
Apple claims that it “has not rejected” the Google Voice app; it simply “has not been approved”. Of course, it was “not approved” on the same day that Apple pulled three already-approved Google Voice apps. Also, Google’s statement at the time that the app was rejected – and that it would instead be shifting its efforts to improving the Google Voice mobile Web site – was not corrected, publicly or, apparently, privately by Apple.
If Google had truly misunderstood, it was far too important a mistake to let stand – which can only mean that Apple is not telling the truth. Instead, Google said – and Apple, in yesterday’s letter, confirmed – that it was being invited to upgrade the mobile Web site. Why have Google do that if the app still had a chance?
Apple’s Orwellian attempt at redefining words beggars belief. It’s insulting not only to the FCC but to the partners that work with Apple and the public that buys Apple’s products – the American portion of which public has its interests represented by the selfsame FCC.
Apple then goes on to state reasons for rejecting the Google app – which they claimed they didn’t do. Mainly the non-denial denial has to do with the app replacing iPhone functions. The funny thing is, this does not occur – for calls to the phone’s native number. Google is offering an alternative number, which actually has nothing to do with the iPhone directly – it only directly affects AT&T.
Apple also claims that users’ contacts are copied to Google servers: quite an incisive claim, seeming to reflect a level of detailed technical knowledge surpassing the unknowns (to Apple) around VOIP – yet something that doesn’t occur at all.
The last time a major tech company gave such a brash response to the US Government was Microsoft’s claims in response to what became the biggest antitrust lawsuit of the 1990s – a legal process that continues today, with ongoing regulatory diktats and large fines from the European Union.
AT&T managed, for now, to keep itself out of the whole issue, claiming it had no role in Apple’s actions and was not consulted on them. AT&T then goes on to justify why it’s entitled to weigh in anyway. The denial seems too flat – even AT&T can’t be sure there isn’t a letter, e-mail, meeting note, or Google Voice voicemail transcript(!) somewhere that could at least be construed as exactly such a discussion. If such surfaces, AT&T will be on the hook as well.
Google redacted – that is, didn’t release publicly – the content of its discussions with Apple. This has the effect of not embarrassing Apple by publicly contradicting them on the day of these announcements. However, the FCC stated in their original letters that they would reject broad requests for confidentiality, suggesting that they may well release the answers from Google that Google seeks to keep confidential.
It’s worth noting that the FCC’s request has already served the public interest. Apple and AT&T disclosed more about the App Store and its approval process, and AT&T’s rights with regard to apps, than had ever been done before. This can only help developers and, ultimately, users, at no cost to Apple and AT&T. In fact, both will benefit from more and better apps, less need for rejections and less angst around the process. It’s a shame it took so much drama to achieve this result.
So what will happen with Google Voice? Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, who have been all over this story, predicts that Apple will soon have to cave in and accept the Google Voice app. This is what Apple’s answer could be preparing a waiting world for: Apple, having never rejected the app, would then complete its review and approve it. This is the result that would best serve the public and accelerate adoption of Google Voice in the shor t term. (Though the Google Android team would no doubt like this to drag on for a couple of years.)
If Apple doesn’t cave in soon, the FCC, having been told by Apple that it’s #1 – by means of an upraised middle finger – now has little alternative but to act. Apple can expect to be caught in the regulatory meat grinder for years to come. The legal disposition of the process is almost beside the point; another tech Gulliver is about to be hobbled by what it seems to see as the Lilliputians who run regulatory bodies and, ultimately, governments. (Which would mean that those vote them in and out of office aren’t worth any consideration at all, apart from our wallets. )
The direct effect of this for Google Voice users would be that they might not have a Google Voice app on the iPhone for years to come. (A better mobile Web site, as Google is working on now, certainly – but no app.) Competing platforms, however, would be boosted – largely meaning Android and BlackBerry.
In the longer term, though, smartphone platforms are likely to be opened up, for developers and users. The FCC’s public statements, and the pressures it’s under from Congress, point in this direction. Apple simply chose to begin the contest for control by serving up a nice, fat softball for the FCC to whallop out of the park, in the form of the Google Voice apps rejection. And Apple, bloodied by criticism but unbowed, has now done it again with its non-answers to the FCC.
Don’t be surprised if the FCC’s next steps focus on the existing developers whose Google Voice apps were yanked by Apple a month ago. There’s no defensible rationale for that action, and Apple has, mistakenly, not yet put the issue to bed by approving these apps. This undeniable, after-the-fact rejection is a wedge into much that Apple would prefer not to discuss, disclose, or change.
