Apple Blocked Google Voice on iPhone for AT&T

by Scott Wu | July 28, 2009 at 12:54 pm

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Apple rejected Google Voice application from the iPhone App store, to protect their exclusive US partner AT&T. Apple's decision to block the service may have been unavoidable because Google Voice would compromise AT&T's business interest. However, the decision has since been criticized and is inviting possible regulations for wireless carriers.

Google Voice lets users route all of their phone calls through a Google number, giving them cheap overseas calls, text translation of voicemail, per contact call routing rules, phone recording and free text messaging, among other features. Unlike Skype’s VOIP application, Google Voice uses the traditional phone channel, not the data plan.

The rejection may have been unavoidable given Apple’s rules. But these kinds of confrontations only heighten awareness of the acceleration of disruptive alternative choices in mobile communications. Among the newly aware?

Google Voice is now still available by invitation only, but mobile application could be used on Android and BlackBerry handsets.

It's easy to imagine Google Voice users might not to want to pay AT&T for features that Google is giving away. So, apparently to protect AT&T, Apple rejected Google Voice.

The move is significant because Apple is now in the position to actively stifle innovation. There is now a renewed interest among regulators to apply the broadband net-neutrality rules on wireless internet. Net-neutrality forces ISPs to allow users to run any application they want.

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