Benlog

My friends and colleagues might soon wonder if they’re witnessing a kind of metamorphosis in me lately: what’s with the Apple criticism, Ben the Apple Fanboy? It’s true, I work exclusively on Macs (often with Linux running inside VMware for development), and I’ve converted many family and friends to Macs. I use the original iPhone. I have Apple wireless base stations, for crying out loud. That said, I don’t like being played for a fool. I’ve briefly expressed my recent frustration with Apple’s iPhone app store, and I’ve started looking at the Palm Pre as a possible upgrade instead of the latest iPhone. Now, Apple’s FCC letter brings me one step closer to Palm.

Specifically, here’s where Apple explains why they have “not yet approved” (*cough*) the Google Voice application, emphasis mine:

The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone. For example, on an iPhone, the “Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. 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.

“alter”? “replace”? really? Since when does the iPhone SDK allow this? And if Google used undocumented APIs to actually alter existing core functionality (which I sincerely doubt), then wouldn’t Apple simply have said “they used undocumented internal APIs that threaten the stability of the platform” and that would have been the end of that?

I call BS. This is some very rapid handwaving. I sincerely doubt the Google Voice app is anything other than yet-another-icon on your app screen that happens to let you place calls and read your google voicemail, independently of the iPhone’s existing functionality. I don’t know the real underlying reason for rejecting the Google Voice app, but the claims in this letter don’t add up. And by sending it to the FCC and posting it on its web site, Apple is playing all of us for fools, and I don’t like it one bit.