Now You See It, Now You Don’t… We Didn’t Make It disappear!

Both Apple and AT&T are denying that they took down Google’s Google Voice Application to the FCC. A recent article in PCWorld discusses the hearing and the results, none that the FCC commented on. Read more:

Apple Denies Rejecting Google Voice for iPhone - PC World

It amazes me how so many companies can get away with some of the things that they do and in Apple’s case not get the smear of it. However, I think that we are beginning to see some of this “Apple never does anything wrong” attitude wearing thin.

I have been reading and listening to many different comments from people who are of the same opinion that Apple has become more Monopolistic than Microsoft ever was/is. They have been able to duck under scrutiny because their market share has been so minor but in some of their products now, iPod/iPhone, they are the clear winner and have the majority of market share. If they are controlling what can be put on their products by consumers who own those products isn’t that a  little over handed?

Back to the article. AT&T denies that it has any role in Apple’s App Store products, but does concur that their “contractual agreement forbids Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications from reaching the App Store unless AT&T agrees.” "From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration," Apple said.

The bigger issue I believe is the program’s SMS capabilities that bypass AT&T’s billing mechanism which is  a huge money maker for them. PCMag repots:

AT&T seemed most concerned about revenue and network traffic issues in its reply to the FCC today. "Both parties required assurances that the revenues from the AT&T voice plans available to iPhone customers would not be reduced by enabling VoIP calling functionality on the iPhone," admitted the carrier. "AT&T's wireless service agreement prohibits subscribers from engaging in uses that cause extreme network capacity issues or interference with the network."

All of this makes more sense to me. From a business stand point I see their concerns. From a consumer, I would like my choice. We are paying for services on our phone connection, voice and data, shouldn’t I be allowed to use the data side the way that I want, as long as I am using it for legal purposes? It shouldn’t matter what the data content is, as long as it is not of illegal nature. We pay for a certain amount of bandwidth not function. And while we are on this subject, how about tethering? This is just another form of data/bandwidth usage. We shouldn’t be band from this either, should we? Sorry AT&T if you haven’t built up your infrastructure to allow function, but if you can’t provide the service then maybe you shouldn’t be selling it as a service.

I love TechCrunch’s comment:

Whatever the reasons, it sucks, and as Jason Kincaid says, what's really troubling about this rejection is that it appears that "Apple is now actively stifling innovation." And the whole black box app approval process doesn't exactly alleviate that sinking feeling either. After all, if Google doesn't stand a chance, how does anybody else?