The FCC is asking Apple and AT&T all the right questions
Google Voice. Art: Google Inc.
[NEWS FLASH: Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple's board. See here.]
Sometimes you've just got to love the government.
Case in point: the inquiry that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission launched Friday into why exactly Apple (AAPL) decided to reject Google's (GOOG) powerful Google Voice call-management system for the iPhone, and what role AT&T (T) played in the decision.
Hundreds of reporters — from the tiniest blogs to the most powerful national newspapers — have been trying since Tuesday to get to the bottom of the story and have run into the same brick wall. The problem is, none of these companies are under any obligation to answer their pesky queries.
But companies do have to answer to the FCC if they want to provide telephone service in the United States. And on Friday, letters sent to Apple, AT&T and Google asked all the right questions. (You can read them yourself below the fold.)
But first, a bit of background.
The reason everyone is making such a fuss about Google Voice is that it solves — in theory, at least — so many of the problems created by modern telephony.
Google Voice started life in 2005 as GrandCentral, a company that offered a single unified life-time phone number in the area code of your choice that would ring all your phones — home, cell, work, vacation home, etc. It also unified your voice messages, putting them in a single voice mailbox on the Web. And it let you tweak the system to your heart's content, setting up different away messages for different callers, blocking telemarketers and collection agencies, choosing to ignore, erase or listen in on incoming messages, and so on.
Google bought GrandCentral in 2007 and seemed content to let it rot, as GigaOm's Judi Sohn put it her widely reposted January editorial “Will the Last One to Leave GrandCentral Please Turn Out the Lights?” But it turned out that Google had been secretly working on it all along, and in March it unveiled a new and improved version — redesigned and renamed Google Voice — with some brand new features, including free conference calling, dirt-cheap international calls and various tricks for turning voice mail into e-mail,
As David Pogue put it in his New York Times review: "If Google search revolutionized the Web, and Gmail revolutionized free e-mail, then one thing’s for sure: Google Voice, unveiled Thursday, will revolutionize telephones."
Group asks FCC to probe iPhone Skype restrictions
All of which helps explain what there was such outrage earlier this week when iPhone users learned that Apple had formally rejected the Google Voice application and was systematically removing from the App Store any Google Voice-related apps that had already been approved.
"Until recently, Apple has managed the store in a generally benevolent, if not somewhat incompetent manner," wrote TechCrunch's Jason Kinkaid in Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core. "But now things are taking a turn for the worse."
Why did Apple reject the Google Voice? Did it do it for its own reasons, or did AT&T twist its arm? If so, why does AT&T support Google Voice for its BlackBerry users? What is the nature of Apple's relationship with AT&T? Or, for that matter, with Google? And how, exactly, does this whole App Store approval process work?
The FCC asks all these questions and more in the letters linked to below. The agency has a mandate to make sure telephone service is available to all Americans who need it, even in remote rural areas.
It has launched a broad investigation into the kind of exclusive deals that have, for example, let Apple sell iPhones to AT&T's customers but not Verizon's (VZ).
We wish them them well.
To learn more about Google Voice, see the list of features here or watch Google's You Tube video, pasted below.
The Government should leave this three companies alone as they partly generate the tax dollars to help the US economy as they are managing to be healthy with their business in the downturn. I don't think it is necessary to flame up in this area. Please take a look in our present economy, what are we seeing? Auto industries and Investment Companies went into trouble. More and more people are becoming unemployed. And FCC try to bring these three companies, I think this it is not a smart move. The only ones who want the US economy and the country to go down, would be happy to see things are getting flame up.
I think that Apple makes the right decision to decline or reject the Google Voice application and the other related voice applications. In the real time communication, the voice applications that iPhone has been using are not reliable for end-users. Most of the times the messages from the senders have been delayed to the next business day. This means if my boss sends me a very important things do, it looks like I have been ignored his assignments. It's bad that I could have been fired from my job if it has been happened often. For the second reason, most people who work for Apple, are using iPhones for their daily business communications and these are including the most confidential subjects of new designs. If Google practices the anti-trust by monitoring in these area, Apple could be a big loser. For the regular end-users, it would be OK ? but it is still a violation to go into someone's privacy without approval.
SoCal Tommy has it wrong. Its not the same to be able to run whatever application you want on a computing machine as modifying a car. Apple sells the phone. The OS for all intents and purposes is a separate product bundled with it. Its like them (Apple) dictating what applications are approved to be run on your laptop. Jail breaking should not be illegal or void the warranty. It should not be jailed in the first place.
I do agree that any physical modification to the device should void the warranty but selection of software on top of the OS should not void the warranty on the hardware.
"ATLAS SHRUGGED…..Govt meddling in business that isnt theirs."
Aha, but it is their business. If it has to do with the airwaves, it is absolutely government business.
Folks have to be a bit more advanced in their thinking when it comes to the economics of the airwaves. Simply dragging out the old line about business freedom demonstrates absolute ignorance of the subject matter.
There can be no legitimate freedom for private business when private business is brokering a public resource. This is called "tax farming", and it brought about the french revolution.
If private corporations can sell you the air you breath, the water that falls from the sky and the roads which connect your houses, then you are tax farmed. It means that the lords of the land own you, and that they pay a fee to the central government for permission to farm you like cattle. Governments that sell the rights to public resources that are necessary to life are guilty of creating a feudal system of law, whereby private lords farm other citizens.
And today this debate moved forward, with Rupert Murdoch proclaiming that he wants to charge people for their news. Advertising revenue is not enough anymore: this lord of the media wants to charge the people for the use of the government airwaves.
This is a radical change in the social model that has existed up to the current day. It is a fundamental shift in the civil law, towards corporate feudalism and outright tax farming.
Previously, government sold the rights to the airwaves to media corporations, and these corporations farmed out the right to advertise to those who wanted to do business with the public airwaves. But the general public were still allowed to access the airwaves for free.
The analogy is that the government allowed companies to charge a toll for trucks and busses who use the public roads, in order to do business. But at the same time, the general public who are using the roads for private purposes were free to do so.
But under the new Murdoch model, nobody has the right to use the roads without paying for the privilege.
If this keeps going in the same direction, soon it will no longer be a crime to share information over the net. Soon it will be a crime to log on to the net and read information unless you have paid.
Anyone who thinks this sort of draconian exploitation of people is far fetched must seriously go to the library and read about tax farming in france before the revolution.
Private lords purchased the right to tax whole regions without restrictions, and they then raped the populace until the people starved in the streets and on the land they farmed for food.
We already have a class of bankers who are to important to go bust. Soon we will have a new class of aristocratic media lords who may take whatsoever they wish from the public, or cut them off from the means of communication with other members of the public.
Atlas shrugged?
Atlas is getting kerb stomped.
Google voice uses a virtual number to connect your phones together. This virtual number can be anything just like an email address. (Of course, it is easier to punch numbers than alpha characters on the keypad.) And it does not have to be 10 digits either. But the number must be unique in Google's phone bank/database. This number is the "mother" of all your subscribed numbers. This gives Google enormous power.
On the flip side, the quality and availability of service are in question should the internet is slow or the servers are under hackers' attacks.
I use Google Voice on my Motorola phone, I use AT&T, and let me tell you somthing, AT&T needs to get use to people that who are using google voice, I use google voice on my phone every day.
to simplifie anything having to do with tech. is scarry. some people (probably) a large majority, are not tech. geeks. ( or what ever) the Iphone simplied many things for many users. Now we find that making the iphone eaiser to use, is against Co.(s) policies, I am locked into a contract that doesn't allow for simplification, only manopolization. great world isn't it ?
I think Tom from Boston has the measure of the issue pretty good.
I agree, Apple's behaviour doesn't make a lot of sense. It stinks of really poor judgement, almost a peevish reaction to better innovation from another company.
The thing about Google Voice is that it is a good idea. Pure and simple, it is neat innovation, and folks like it. It solves a problem. In a way, Google Voice is classic Apple thinking.
The problem it solves is being screwed by telco's every time they overcharge you, because it is always a choice between walking out on them and moving to a competitor, or not. If you walk out, you suffer because you have to change numbers.
So Google Voice is awesome, it is going to make a lot of folks happy.
But why are Apple freaking out about it? I don't get it.
The only explanation I can think of is that Apple are worried that Google will end up building momentum with Android, and start providing real competition in the smartphone world.
They could be right.
After thinking about google voice, in conjunction with the limitations I'm sick of finding with Apple's SDK, I finally downloaded the Android SDK and built my first App with it.
And it sucks.
BUT…. it doesn't suck too hard. Not too hard. And it has Google behind it.
So… I am going to stay in touch with Android, and maybe tinker around some here and there. If Google keep investing in the software SDK and keep supporting Android with open source API's, there will come a time when Apple will be eclipsed and surpassed.
My hope is that Google will be real competition, and thus force Apple to wake up and start innovating again, instead of hiring lawyers to make money from clever contracts with telco's.
What some people are arguing about here is some what ridiculous. Regardless if a company is hiring people, giving good deals to those in need and such, they are still required to follow the law. The government shouldn't look the other way for any reason. That is what the FCC is for in this case. There are other parts of the Government that go "Protect everyone else"…
The FCC is attempting to understand if either Apple or AT&T are offering the services stated available, such as Unlimited Internet, or if it is attempting to monopolize in the market.
Nextel use to get it all the time for their Direct Connect feature.
In addition to the "exclusive handset deals", the iPhone is just the obvious one. However, a decision made against them will also affect other exclusives such as the Palm Pre.
People need to quit thinking so closed minded about things and understand that it is easier to make a point about the obvious case, and just use the ruling to oversee the market.
I have Google Voice. The way I understand it, Google Voice allows you to give out one phone number (your Google Voice number) and then when anyone calls that number, it will automatically “forward” the call to any additional phone numbers that you want.. This functionality IS NOT and CAN NOT be restricted by Apple.
When you make a phone call, caller ID will show your phone number. If you call from your cell phone for example, then your cell phone number will show up on caller ID. If you want your Google Voice number to show up on caller ID, then you have to first call your own Google Voice number, and you will then receive voice prompts to enter the phone number you really want to call, and then Google Voice will “connect” the call. This way, you can call from your cell phone, or home phone, or any phone, and your Google Voice number will show up on caller ID. From what I understand, the iPhone app that is no longer available allowed users to make a call directly from their iPhone, and their Google Voice number would show up on caller ID, rather than their AT&T number, and without having to first dial into your Google Voice number. So, iPhone users are still able to use Google Voice with full functionality, the same as everyone else can.. It’s just that iPhone users no longer have the added convenience of making a call directly from their iPhone if they want their Google Voice number to display on caller ID.. If they want their Google Voice number to show up on caller ID, they now have to dial into Google Voice first, just like everyone else.
While I don’t really understand what Apple’s motive could be in removing a very convenient app from it’s store, I don’t really see how the FCC or anyone else can take any action against them.. Apple is not actually RESTRICTING Google Voice functionality at all. iPhone users still have the exact same access to Google Voice that everyone else does.. They just no longer have the ADDED convenience of not having to dial into Google Voice first.
Perhaps I missed something, but isn't this akin to Apple saying that you can't access your hotmail account (a competetor's [Microsoft]product) from an iphone? Bear with me, but If google voice is a web based product/application that is accessed via a URL (as is implicated in this story and in reader responses to it), how is it different than Apple denying access to hotmail's e mail services? If I pay for web service on an iphone, and then can't access certain websites because apple doesn't approve of them, I am going to be quite angry. I am suffering from a bait and switch tactic. I am being sold internet access (which is presumably the ENTIRE internet), but not getting what I bought. Further, I agree with Adam from Richmond VA on the issue of Hardware (which the iphone is):
———————
"Personally I dont understand how Apple can even get away with restricting which applications are allowed on the iPhone, because if Microsoft was to do something like that AND require payment from anyone and everyone for any application sold on the PC there would be an uproar. The iPhone is a mini computer with an operating system, anyone and everyone should be able to write an application for it, for free, at their own expense. Apple doesnt have to offer it in their store, but 3rd party stores would pop up in seconds."
Oh yes Adam. Everyone should get everything for free, even if someone else pays thousands, or millions to develop it.
You can jailbreak an iPhone and do whatever you want. Why does Apple need to help you. Oh yeah, and you want the original warranty to apply too.
That's why when you buy a car your warranty works for the purpose the manufacturer intended. Sure you can modify your new car to get better gas mileage, have more horsepower, handle better, have better lights, brakes or stereo. BUT, you will likely void your warranty in the process. And so you don't get it fixed for free when it takes a dump. You may void it if you take the car to the racetrack too.
Get real. There is no "right" to own an iPhone (I don't). Verizon customers are not "harmed" by not having the iPhone available to them.
Government should not be about pandering to every squeeling little moron who imagines that they have been slighted in some fashion.
I don't own an iPhone or Apple stock and the newest Mac I own is from 1995.
When I pay my massive bill to AT&T for using my iPhone on their network..they claim I can use an UNLIMITED amount of data…as in without limits. What I choose to use over that data connection is none of their business so long as it is not illegal. Nothing about Google Voice is illegal. Also, if I pay for 1400 minutes every month, and I choose to use my minutes over Google Voice, that also is my decision and not theirs. The funny thing about this is, most likely, this is not AT&T's decision, it is Apple's. One of iPhone's features is "visual voicemail" of which Google Voice improves upon and lets you get your voicemail at any computer (especially helpful when your iPhone has run out of batteries!!!!)
I guess it's also a function of the idiots (myself included) who use the app store and think apple is great most of the time. We're willing to ignore the fact that they act with complete disregard for what their users want…rather, they tell us what we may have much like an overbearing parent. nobody wants that.
I suspect most people opposed to the FCC looking into this are either Apple employees or dont understand the extent of the innovation provided by Google voice.
Personally I dont understand how Apple can even get away with restricting which applications are allowed on the iPhone, because if Microsoft was to do something like that AND require payment from anyone and everyone for any application sold on the PC there would be an uproar. The iPhone is a mini computer with an operating system, anyone and everyone should be able to write an application for it, for free, at their own expense. Apple doesnt have to offer it in their store, but 3rd party stores would pop up in seconds.
Anyone who claims this is a waste of taxpayer money on 'trivial' subjects needs to read up a bit on what Google voice provides and give a legitimate reason Apple should be able to restrict its use on an internet enabled phone.
I guess jetting around with Obama on the campaign trail is really paying off for Google's CEO. I'm amazed that the government is really spending our tax dollars going after companies that are still actually spending, hiring, and generating tax revenue while at the same time they dole out bailouts to the autos, banks and insurance companies. I'm sick of Google freeriding on networks that everyone else builds. Let's let everyone ride for free on networks that cost billions of dollars to build so we can add Telecom and Cable to the list of industries that need a bailout. What a great formula for paying for the biggest government expansion in history, let's start going after those companies that are actually managing their businesses responsibly and see if we cant drive them into the ground as well. Oh, and for you that think that AT&T's network is bad today, just wait until it's free.
Is that what they teach you in… what unimportant country is that… Switzerland?
I'm happy here thanks.
Is not Google in agreements to produce an exclusive phone? I don't think this is so much about innovation than Google trying to dominate anything with an IP address. Apple like any other tech company has learned a big lesson from Microsoft, stand your ground in letting one company dominate the market. That is what stifles innovation. I'm not in love with Apple like others here, but I do think that its detractors take any chance to chip away at its recent successes.
Imagine if an entire nation had FREE wi fi.
Everywhere.
Who loses?
Well, governments lose revenue from telco's, and telco's lose easy revenue from the public.
But this is funky logic, because theoretically government revenue IS the public's money.
So all that would happen if everyone had free wi fi is that telco owners would not make billions in profit.
But if government cut the telco's out of the deal…….. how would the revolving door between corporate business and government reward politicians who favoured telco's?
How could political party members get rich by making good buddy friends with the owners of telco's?
Most Americans think they live in a free country with freedom from tyranny, but you people are being forced to buy your own air. From yourselves.
although i sympathize greatly with the sentiment that says "DONT SPEND MY TAXES POLICING BUSINESS", it doesn't really apply to bandwidth.
See, government utterly controls bandwidth, and it is a very finite resource. Companies can't just go out and start utilizing the air waves howsoever they see fit. Government controls and licenses the air waves to corporations who pay the fees. Those corporations have pretty much got a share of a monopoly.
There is a good argument to be made that if something cannot be purchased by everyone, but it has to be used by everyone, then it ought to be government owned. This is because otherwise you get what the 17th century french called "Tax farming".
Essentially, if government sells shares in a monopoly that not every business can share at once but which everyone must use (think roads, train tracks, water and bandwidth), the government effectively allows the firms who share that monopoly to raise taxation revenue.
See, everyone MUST communicate. Everyone MUST travel by road. Everyone MUST drink clean water. And so if government sells the rights to these things to private companies, they are effectively allowing the owners of those companies to hold the public to ransom. they are selling the right to tax, hence "tax farming". You can farm those citizens, and you can farm those ones over there, and so on.
You'll understand this idea very easily if you consider what would happen if the road outside your house was owned by me, and I could charge you whatever I liked for the privilege of using it. I effectively own you. You are free to sit in your house and starve, or pay me what I want.
Is your position better if Phil can outbid me for the right to force you to pay what he wants?
Thus it is clear that there are some things we must share, and that government ought not sell, because they should be available to everyone. And certainly, nobody should be allowed to own something everybody needs, or they effectively own those people.
Well, that is what has happened with bandwidth. Governments know that by selling a monopoly product like bandwidth, they are selling a method of tax farming. And they get HUGE revenue from this. Easy revenue. And it is easy profits for the shareholders of the communications corporations, too. Dead easy. They have the public over a barrel, and they know it.
People will say there is competition….. but there is a limit to that competition. If there is more demand for bandwidth than available space on the dial…. then you get a situation where competition is a nice theory, but not a reality.
And if that is NOT the case….. why would telco's pay such huge money for the licenses?
So as soon as Apple got into the telco business by getting into exclusive deals with AT&T, they got involved in the very murky practice of modern tax farming, and government regulation.
Hence there has been a direct correlation between Apple joining forces with AT&T and Apple beginning to treat its customer base with contempt. It happens, when private individuals own other individuals.
In a free society, government would allow all citizens to use the airwaves equally, and taxation would pay to maintain the service. Either that, or anyone could use the airwaves howsoever they liked, and it would be a total mess and the military couldn't operate.
So this debate is a little more complex than free market versus government control.
I agree with Jason from Painesvill Ohio. The Google phone doesnt use itune and apples apps, so why should the iphone use google voice. So who cares? Apple and AT&T have the right as businesses in the free market to say what they use or not use.
Might it be that Apple has something similar in the works and doesn't want iPhone users to get used to Google before they release their own software?
While this decision certainly won't bankrupt Google, it must make small developers think twice before investing time and money into applications that may get regected because they are too innovative.
I'm an Apple fan and iPhone addict, but come on Apple, you of all companies shouldn't stiffle innovation.
People just don't get it. It's never good when government gets involved in trivial matters such as this. My tax dollars are at work investigating how the app approval process of a privately owned business runs. Give me a break, this is not what government is for, try really protecting the people who need it and not the ones who cry and moan about the way their technology toys work.
This appears to have been brewing for "several weeks", but this response from the FCC to something that publicly hit the fan only last Tuesday — the letters themselves refer to a NYT story published on that day — seems incredibly quick. There was an ongoing FCC look-see into "special" hardware/carrier relationships, but still…..for the federal government this was fast.
And that does suggest that Google has big friends in high places who don't need a lengthy formal complaint from a lawyer's office to get cracking. I suspect Google did more last Tuesday than simply publish a gripe about the situation. That would be an interesting rabbit trail.
Sacto Joe: The First Amendment handcuffs government from stiffling our speech; it says nothing about how a business (for instance) limits speech. Where I work, I sign a contract limiting my speech in exchange for wages and bennies. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. It's their ball and their game.The government has no business dictating to GE or Fox what their employees can and can't say. If I work for GE, can I say "GE sucks" and expect no retribution for it? Nonsense. I'll go work for Fox and say it there, but then I'd better not speak ill of Fox. How about if I move into your house and play loud rock music 24/7. Is it my "right" to do so? Should government guarantee your made-up "right," as they routinely do nowadays? You see salvation in government; I see tyranny.
Bottom line: government's sole purpose is to guarantee our freedoms, particularly as defined in the Bill of Rights, not to limit them. Unfortunately, government today is nothing but the latter, thanks to big-government pimps like you.
And Phoenix Woman: I think I can answer your questions: the Democrat party. Try Al Gore Sr., George Wallace, Ross Barnett, and Bobby Byrd, for instance. They all had "-D" appended to their names. Lincoln had a "-R" after his, in case you forgot. Except for your last statement, to which I ask "what birth certificate?"
Lots of stuff happens that could be investigated but isn't. Is the FCC investigating the muzzling of Keith Olbermann by GE? Or punishing Fox for habitually lying to the public?
And while I'd like to know if it's AT&T or Apple that's behind this, I also understand that it's the nature of business to protect itself, including stifling innovation.
And we as consumers should be aware of that, and that we are powerless to do anything about it individually. We only have power in group action.
Which is what government's all about.
Too everyone who thinks the FCC "has too much power" please get a little more clued in about how your government works. The frequencies that we through our government license to a few companies are very lucrative, that is why the bidding process demands such high price tags. The fact that the huge wireless companies via lobbyists are able to ensure they can do whatever they then want with our nations precious resource is a embarrassment to every citizen. That it takes Apple arrogance to bring them out is probably only because Apple has not setup a PAC powerful enough, be sure they will and this will never be a headline again.
This looks like a GREAT product idea. Too bad it is Google. I don't trust them, and suspect AT&T and Apple don't either.
However, I don't see how a company can sell you a product and tell you how you may use it. It seems to me that once you buy the hardware, you should be able to put whatever software you want on it and use it in any manner you deem fit.
Don't get me wrong, I am an Apple fan simply because they continue to innovate. I also recognize that paying for service is the price of the product. But once your contract is done, you should be able to do what-ever you wish with the hardware. IT IS YOURS at that point.
Sorry, fellow Apple fans, I think the evil Google has a good idea here. And anyone who stands in front of progress is no friend of mine! (Unless someone can come up with a good argument as to how stopping people from using the product is good for innovation.)
I'm sure consumers with IPhones will be happy, but in all reality, the FCC generally has too much power, and this is certainly an example of how its abused.
Until the FCC antes up its own budget to market risk taken by Apple and AT&T, it cannot dictate business decisions of private investors and stockholders.
John Scott is correct. No one forced any consumer to buy an IPhone. The people who bought it did so knowing they had to have AT&T as a carrier. If you didn't like those conditions, you should not have signed the contract.
The primary purpose of the FCC is to responsibly administer access to public airwaves, not make private business decisions that benefit a consumer.
In the letter to Apple – it seems to me that they have overstepped their bounds on questions #5 & #6. Exactly what Apple's app general approval guidelines are and the acceptance rate, etc. are not really the domain of the FCC, except as they pertain to telecommunications. Otherwise, I agree, these are pertinent questions/
@ apc, sac ca:
You say:
"I wonder how many stupid members of comm. workwers of america voted for obama ????"
I do not bother to wonder how many stupid people voted against Obama, but clearly at least one.
is his name dewitt or dimwit–isn't this still america and can't businesses still decide what products they sell–oh wait, i forgot, obama and congress are changing that
ex ped: "Of course there are many sincere men who now believe in unrestricted individualism in business, just as there were formerly many sincere men who believed in slavery — that is, in the unrestricted right of an individual to own another individual." — Theodore Roosevelt.
John Scott: Funnily enough, the people I hear most heavily bashing the government tend to come from the part of the country that turned traitor in 1861 rather than give up its "states' rights" to enslave other humans. (They're also the same people who refuse to admit that President Obama is a US citizen. Fifty years ago they were shouting the N-bomb openly, forty years ago they were saying that letting black kids in their schools violated States' Rights, and now they're pretending that Obama's birth certificate is fake.)
For the 1st time ever, thank you FCC. finally they stick up for growth and open markets. The protectionistic practices that appear to be coming from Apple / AT&T need to end.
Apple may have a great product, but AT&T is a common carrier. They are not supposed to be able to control who can use their network vs can not.
No one is required to buy an iPhone. No one is required to buy an App.
Apple's capriciousness with regard to the approval process is well publicized. If you don't like it, buy a Blackberry.
Overall good almost never results from the intrusion of the general government whether through the corrupt FCC or the even more corrupt Congress.
I wonder how many stupid members of comm. workwers of america voted for obama ????
ex ped: workwers?
Watch the video-first time I've seen the transcript from a voice call that didn't have laughable errors. I wish mine were as accurate, I guess I need people to leave me 4 word messages.
It all goes back to Open Internet. Congress passed law assuring that Consumers are guaranteed Open Internet on wired networks, but not on wireless networks. The only difference is wired vs. unwired connection. Open internet is a basic freedom we have here (China does not…), but only from a wired carrier (Comcast, Time Warner, etc.), not from wireless (att, Verizon wireless, etc).
Can you imagine having to buy the PC that Comcast forced you to buy, and having to use only the music services and VOIP services they offer, at the price they set? While, that's what you get on wireless, thanks to US Congress continually allowing wireless access controll by the serivce providers. (they keep voting it down)
Write your Senator and Congressman – now. I have.
This smells more like an AT&T deal than an Apple deal. I would hazard a guess that the fine print on the contract Apple signed with AT&T is forcing this issue. Why should Apple give a rip how their product is used as a phone? After all, they're in the hardware business.
I also welcome the involvement of the FCC. Let's get to the bottom of this!
@Billy There's a big difference here. If you buy a Chevy you have the right as s consumer to get any dang engine you want and put it into your car no matter if it's made by Toyota or made out of aluminum foil and bananas.
If you own a car you can go to your GM dealer for service or and get genuine GM parts or you can go to a junk yard or a service center or wherever and get after market parts for everything from an engine to a radio to a flipped out fin on the back.
Don't forget that the iphone is a computer at its core. It would be a bit like if Microsoft colluded with say Dell and had a sweetheart deal that not only made it impossible to get Windows with anything but a Dell but also that you couldn't later buy any of your own software anywhere else but on the "DellTunes" site.
Apple & AT&T have been doing everything possible to prevent users from doing what they want with the phone they buy and is completely possible and safe technically.
Remember the old Ma Bell when AT&T owned everything from the land lines to the phone in your house (you couldn't even buy the phone you had to rent it). Back then AT&T claimed you could bring down the whole US phone network if you bought a phone from someone else. Finally, the FCC and the courts said BS to AT&T and they let people do what was technically possible and was good for consumers and the free market.
Heh… and this kind of "app approval" (or rejection, in this case) is what people want in their phone and that supposed 10-inch tablet that is coming?
Keep drinking the kool-aid, folks.
If the government makes Apple & AT&T use a Google service that competes with them, I guess I should be able to get a Ford engine in a Chevy car, OR by Target Brand Ice Cream at Walmart, OR use Mexican money in France. What a joke.
AT about halfway thru there is an interview with David Biedny. It's very interesting….
http://www.techbroadcasting.com/podcasts/nightowl_090730.mp3
Are you kidding me? Now that Apple has gotten into bed with Microsoft, it would not surprise me if they had something to do with killing the Google deal.
It's not all about phones. It's about managing the media on an individual (and corporate) basis. To be sure, Msoft (and others) have bigger ideas. I'm not sure the Big Carriers have a clue about multimedia delivery and service.
I have been in this industry a long time (over 25 yrs) and nothing surprises me. I am, however, disappointed because I think Apple has lost some of its independence, "chutzpah", that made it what it is today. Too bad. Is Google going to take the lead role as the next big innovator? Sure looks that way.
ex ped: To which romp in the hay with Microsoft are you referring? Is this a new affair, or a dalliance from the past?
another qn , why I need to provide my credit card details & set up itunes account if I only want to install a free iphone application.
Randy,
Can you give a source for your market share number?
I'm sure if you consider the entire phone market, even Nokia's share is vanishingly small. If you look only at cellular phones (see what I did there?), Apple has about 1.9%, according to IDC (). But most people would consider the real market to be "smartphones," where Apple has a worldwide market share of 10.9% in 1Q09, according to Gartner (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10245339-37.html).
Phil how about another article about how a phone with %1 or less market share is causing this kind of rukus with everyone? That is a story unto itself. Look out Nokia…
Is there a reason why, in the middle of this article, there's a bold-faced link to a year and a half old rumor about iPhone coming to Verizon "as early as January 2009"?
I am glad that the FCC is looking into the Google Voice issue and hope that Apple makes the iTunes store less capricious.
ex ped: Oops. Wrong link. Fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out.
Should Disney be forced to allow Looney Tunes to sell it's wares in the Disney store?