It reads like very old news to those of us who closely follow the trials and tribulations of Google Voice on the iPhone. Nonetheless a column by Andy Kessler in today’s Wall Street Journal spells out all that is wrong about the way that the App Store’s staff formally rejected and expunged Google Voice and related iPhone applications and enablers. Kessler subscribes to the theory (first spelled out in detail by the folks at TechCrunch) that AT&T was the eminence grise that urged Apple to nix the Google Voice application on the ostensible grounds that it duplicates too many native iPhone capabilities (and what telephony application doesn’t).

Kessler almost needlessly points out that the reason for the rejection is the fact that “AT&T is dying” and wants to cripple any innovation by phone app developers while it essentially overcharges for minutes of use (for voice) and kilobytes of content (for data). Whether AT&T or Apple precipitated the rejection is irrelevant. What’s more important is that a stench is building around present practices that make it hard, or expensive, for application developers to bring a host of new services to market. Kessler brings up many of the memes espoused by the Freedom to Connect (F2C) mavens, urging wholesale changes in public policy surrounding communications, especially the end of exclusivity and ownership of the airwaves.

This is no time for the FCC to treat incumbent carriers like the SEC and Treasury Dept. have treated large banks and mortgage facilitators. As Kessler puts it, “new features for apps like Google Voice are only limited by the imagination.” Hear! Hear!

Categories: Articles

Tags: Recombinant Telephony, Google, Apple, Rich Phone Apps, AT&T