It looks like the FCC’s bravado move to lay some smack down on both Apple and AT&T has pretty much unearthed a whole heap of nothing. AT&T and Apple have just released their responses to those now infamous letters the FCC sent to Apple, AT&T and Google over the whole Google Voice debacle. AT&T’s position is best summed when it said that it had “no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application”, while Apple’s response is pretty damn classic. You see, Apple is claiming that this is all just a misunderstanding and that it didn’t reject the official Google Voice app, it’s just taking its sweet ass time reviewing it in full. Why? Because it’s has two major concerns:
1. “[Google Voice] 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.”
2. The iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.”
Anyone abreast on anything Apple-related knows there’s a multitude of applications available for download or purchase that duplicate many different parts of the iPhone interface so we’ll leave the comments to you, as always.
