Originally Posted By: Dignan
Tom, you should have mentioned the part where Apple describes how great it is that they protected their users from Google's dangerous app, by claiming it does things that it doesn't actually do:

- They claim it completely takes over phone and sms from the iPhone and makes it all free. Untrue. It does make sms to and from your GV number free, and makes international calling with your GV number cheaper, but it doesn't have a single thing to do with calls and sms to your AT&T number.

- They claim that all the contacts on a user's iPhone are automatically, and without the user's knowledge, uploaded to Google's servers for use with Google Voice. Apparently, hearing from users who had the app briefly, this is just plain untrue.

They (rightfully) claimed that Google Voice replaces the built in functionality of the dialer, voicemail and SMS. Basically meaning that by using your Google Voice number exclusively, those functions would be accessible through the app only and not the built in apps. Is it a good reason to reject the app? I don't think so, and I do wish Apple would stop rejecting apps for "duplicating iPhone functionality". If a user wants Firefox Mobile instead of Safari, that should be the users choice.

As far as the contacts being uploaded to Google, thats something that without Google's response, is hard to verify. The official Google App never made it out for anyone to download, so any "users who had the app briefly" were either confusing the 3rd party apps that were pulled, or somehow had a prerelease copy.

Overall, I'm not nearly upset* as some people are about all this. I don't expect Apple to open their platform like others do. I still have a choice of smartphones, and I still prefer the iPhone experience over the Android, Pre, WinMo or Symbian experience. If I feel the advantages of the Apple platform no longer outweigh the disadvantages, I'll look at switching.

* I was hesitant to even link to either of these two articles, as both really come across as hit generating headlines. Both authors have recently started trolling heavily against Apple to generate hits, and (following the money here), may be trying to generate enough negative press to get a backlash going against the rumored Apple Tablet, a device that would compete directly with the CrunchPad.