

Apple lied to public about Google Voice app rejection - mcantelon
http://mashable.com/2009/09/18/google-apple-fcc/

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idm
On the one hand, I feel like Apple can probably hide behind the terms of its
app store and be sufficiently safe from any consequences. In the short term.

Especially given the "duplicating dialer functionality" argument, this sounds
a lot like AT&T has something to do with the rejection, even though Apple and
AT&T adamantly deny that.

So, for the slightly-less-short-term, it sounds like Apple has an
(anti-)competition issue here... and if the FCC doesn't care about it (and
they might) then the FTC surely will. After all, isn't "duplicate
functionality" just a secret code for "competing with our features?"

~~~
tptacek
Uh, no. Being arbitrary and protective about what products you allow people to
build onto your own products is not inherently a restraint of trade.

My cable set-top box is a Cisco product. There are lots of cool things I could
do with it. It controls a critical communications channel for me. I can't even
swap it out for a different component. Clearly the FTC does not care that
Cisco and AT&T have colluded to prevent me from modifying it.

When someone can convince the DoJ that Apple has seized control of the phone
market, so that no viable alternatives exist to bring connected mobile
software to market, Apple will be in a position to violate the law by
capriciously denying applications. They're not there yet.

People _want_ to develop for the iPhone because it's the best, most popular
platform. They don't have to.

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jhancock
You and idm both make good arguments, they don't seem exactly the same. Both
are reasonable. I'll throw in a third. Although "Being arbitrary and
protective about what products you allow people to build onto your own
products is not inherently a restraint of trade", perhaps some forms of it
should be. Do we have to wait for a form of monopoly control that fits the
DoJ's intervention before we fix things that may obviously be broken? DMCA
protections aside, maybe its time our gov does take a stand on companies
precluding us from doing what we want with something after we purchase it.

Your set-top box perhaps only should be protected if modifying it could cause
serious harm to the core service provided, a service that is supposed to be
neutral in what it carries. That narrow protection (if it even applies to your
set-top box) should most certainly not apply to value-added user apps on a
pocket computer.

If a role of government is to ensure economic growth, is it wise to use Apply
as the foothold case to create rules to disallow this level of protectionism?
Would the PC market have created the level of economic growth it did if IBM
had controlled what software could be installed? Is it acceptable in terms of
economic potential that simply because companies have the means to control
such distribution now that they be allowed to?

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tptacek
I'm not going to say your argument is crazy, but I see the other side of it,
which is that companies should be free to build product offerings they way
they want to build product offerings.

So in that respect, I have zero problem with Apple locking down the iPhone.
It's their show, they should be able to put it on the way they want it to.

Now, AT&T's business practices in preventing arbitrary handset manufacturers
from bringing products to market is a problem, especially because they don't
compete with any vendor that welcomes free handset innovation. AT&T and its
mobile network competitors _are_ colluding to restrain competition.

But I don't buy that we should be making Apple the proxy for that problem just
because they managed to break a small crack in that barrier.

~~~
jhancock
I may be crazy in that I don't think the gov should see this as protecting
Google, but as using the case to clarify consumer rights. I'm obviously a huge
fan of "I bought it, its mine, stay out of my way". Additionally, as a fan of
the potential of free markets (we rarely get to see one in action, so who
knows, maybe I'd change my mind if I actually lived in one), I feel Apple and
other's behavior potentially creates less-free markets (its one of the many
things "I believe but can't prove").

Let me setup a really crazy example:

A home builder AppleHomes is selling high quality homes at hefty discounts
from other builders. Made in China, "designed" in California. About a year
into selling a few million houses, AppleHomes turns on their AppleCam network.
A million homes live for everyone to enjoy their reality fetish. Sorry, you
can't turn off your ShowerCam, its embedded into your product. Doing so is a
violation of rule 234.43B in the 1984-page ThinkOfTheChildredAct. AppleHomes
is being quite generous in discounting your AppleEnergy power bill with 50% of
the revenue it generates from viewers of your AppleCams.

This example is meant to sound crazy. But according to your views on business
can do what it wants, isn't this scenario just as possible (though hopefully
not probably)?

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philwelch
That's a pretty bad analogy in any case: it's like you deliberately bought a
house from Apple without being able to install any additional appliances, but
they will sell you more appliances, most of which made by third parties, most
of which are totally unnecessary and destined to be thrown away after a day or
two, but all of which have hidden cameras in them. You can install appliances
Apple doesn't sell you, but then Apple will refuse to support the appliances
you already have in your house, the house itself, or your lawn chair.

~~~
jhancock
sorry, my example wasn't meant to mirror too much the AppStore. I was only
using the Apple names as satire. My point is to show what can happen when
products are sold as services and/or when a product or service can be
controlled after the initial transaction.

I have no hatred of Apple. I am a fan of their products and use them daily. I
think they are doing pretty much what any other company in its position would
do. If society doesn't want this sort of behavior, we have to regulate against
it. That's how we control the boundaries of what companies can do.

I think this case of Apple/ATT/Google is a good battleground for fleshing out
these issues before for example, the nature of things like books changes
drastically. Apple isn't the only one testing these boundaries. We've seen the
music companies try. Now we're seeing inroads in Books. What happens when
every product becomes a service? What happens when every product must be
extended through the same provider that you made the initial transaction?

~~~
philwelch
While right, I don't think Apple's crossed any of the important barriers: what
you agree to upon buying an iPhone is pretty much what you get.

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dandelany
So much of the commentary surrounding this contoversy is analogies & thought
experiments, presumably because there's not a lot of precedent for cases
exactly like this.

So here's mine - Imagine that, next week, Apple releases a new service called
iVoice that all but duplicates the functionality of Google Voice. Transcribes
voicemail & e-mails it, provides a full web interface (probably integrated
with MobileMe), and obviously integrates seamlessly into a new iPhone OS
update. If this happened, would it be a significantly different issue than
Windows packaging IE with an install, but not Netscape? Can you imagine the
hell that would break loose if Windows decided to become an IE-only platform?

I suppose the big difference is that they make the hardware too - but there's
no way Dell could get away with making a hardware modification that prevented
you from installing certain software. Does Apple really get to make _all_ the
rules here?

~~~
jsz0
Apple is not even close to a monopoly in cell phone hardware so there is quite
a significant difference. There are many other alternatives to the iPhone.
Apple rejecting Google Voice doesn't preclude anyone from getting an Android
phone or BlackBerry instead. As long as that healthy competition exists Apple
has nothing to worry about. If they were to build a monopoly in cell phone
hardware they would have to drastically change their business practices or
face the US DOJ and EU.

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th0ma5
ars has more with some follow up from apple... this seems to be some in-the-
middle hand wringing... they haven't "rejected" it, but they haven't approved
it, either... [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-
releases...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/fcc-releases-
confidential-details-of-google-voice-app-rejection.ars)

~~~
mcantelon
A fairly transparent attempt to cover their ass, methinks.

~~~
pyre
My thoughts exactly. Another possibility is that this was some decision that
someone made at Apple without Steve Jobs' 'permission' or 'guidance' while he
was on leave and this new response is Steve trying to reverse what he thinks
is a bad decision without making look like the company: (1) 100% relies on him
for its success (i.e. without him they would fall apart) and/or (2) doesn't
know what the hell it's doing.

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jsz0
I still think Apple is trying to build a more favorable deal with Google. From
Apple's perspective they have the most widely used mobile web device in terms
of actual usage. Nokia, RIM, etc sell more units but the iPhone dominates
mobile usage. Google is already the default search & map provider for the
iPhone delivering tens of millions of users and probably hundreds of millions
of ad views to Google. Perhaps Google Voice could be a default also? What if
Apple were willing to either build the functionality into the core software or
simply pre-install the GV app on every iPhone? Maybe Apple feels like they are
becoming the real mobile gateway to the Internet and might deserve a bigger
slice of Google's pie? I'm not endorsing this theory as good business but it
makes a lot of sense to me.

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mattmaroon
Apple lies more than I did when I was in college and had two girlfriends. When
they say one thing I've started betting the other way. When they said Jobs was
fine, despite looking like Skeletor in a black mock turtleneck, I bought some
puts. That worked well. If only I had known about it the first time they
covered up his trying to cure cancer by eating more carrots, or when they said
"no we're not making a phone".

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GHFigs
Can someone point out the lie? This seems in line with Apple's prior
statements to me.

Yes, there is a difference between Apple saying they're still considering it
and Google saying they rejected it--but that's expected, given that Google has
no idea what is going on inside Apple. I don't see how that constitutes a lie.
From Google's perspective, it has been rejected, but I see no claim that that
rejection was said to be permanent and inclusive of all possible
implementations of Google Voice for the iPhone (which is the real issue).
Hence, from Apple's perspective, it's still an open question.

It seems like people have chosen this one application to assume that all
rejections are permanent, even though there are hundreds if not thousands of
examples in the App Store of applications that were initially rejected for one
reason or another, and later approved with or without modification.

