FCC investigating Google Voice app rejection for the iPhone

This should be interesting to watch, and hopefully start forcing Apple to be a bit more open with their application approval process.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/31/fcc-takes-on-apple-and-att-over-google-voice-rejection/

The Google Voice app rejection, along with pulling other apps that were previously approved irritated me quite a bit. I'm glad it riled up enough people that the FCC is looking into it.

Ah. Interesting. The approval process for applications is pretty opaque and arbitrary at the moment.

AT&T and the various other carriers must have had a hand in making Apple remove NetShare so I wouldn't be too surprised if this was a similar thing even though AT&T hint it is Apple. I guess Nullriver can't even reapply for it now since it duplicates existing iPhone functionality...

All the Google Voice app for the Blackberry does is control the normal phone application. It seems to always call the same number, so I imagine that it sends a message to Google that says "when this number calls, forward it to this other number".

Well, I suppose it does bypass the SMS application for sending.

The 3rd party GV Voice app that I have (and was pulled) does full SMS, allows changing of what phone numbers ring, lets me dial anyone so it shows up as my Google # to the recipient, and allows visual voice mail access. If I use it to call a number, Google calls my phone first, then connects the call.

I would imagine Google probably had some additional features, possibly including push support so Google Voice SMS would be just like AT&T's $1600 per MB SMS service.

Yeah, that's how it works for the Android app too. To be honest, I've never used SMS because I have no interest in it, but because it was free with my GV account, I've sent a few using the service. But I've read elsewhere that there are other apps on the iPhone that can do SMS, though this wouldn't be the first time Apple used absurd logic or double standards when it came to rejecting apps.

Does anyone know if Apple has given an "official" reason why they pulled the apps?

This article has a summary of the discussion the VoiceCentral app developer had with an Apple representative. It basically comes down to this:

Apple - Your app (that we already approved) duplicates iPhone functionality and is being pulled.
VC Dev - "Can you tell me what portions of the app were duplicate features?"
Apple - "I can’t go into granular detail."

Completely black box. Apple really needs to take a look at how approval processes work for other closed systems like game consoles and mirror them. It would really help improve these types of situations for both parties. Like it or not, the success of the iPhone partially relies on the developers making applications for the platform. If Apple manages to drive major players away to other platforms, it will harm them long term. Even my mother on her iPhone uses 3rd party apps all the time.

I'm extremely torn over this whole issue. I think Apple have done the iPhone community a great disservice in their app approval process and I also think the app store (not the apps) really sucks (bad UI, hard to find anything, the way apps get promoted and ranked, etc..) I don't like arbitrary rules and I think Apple are too hands-on with the approval process.

By the same token, I believe that government should not be (very) hands-on in shaping or directing what a company (operating in the free market) does. Double-edged sword. Some industries demand regulation while others do not, so it's not a blanket situation.

In this circumstance, I believe however that the FCC is justified in their inquiry because while the iPhone does not hold a monopoly position in the market, the body is responsible for overseeing regulation of wireless carriers. And one of the big issues at play here is exactly what involvement ATT has with this app approval process, what they may be doing to stifle competition and preventing customers from accessing other networks with their personal hardware.

I'd like to see mandatory limits placed on exclusivity deals that involve locked hand sets. Mandatory free unlocking provided by all carriers after "x" amount of contract time (at a minimum, since what I'd really like to see is a complete ban on locking handsets). And unlocking and jail breaking firmly established as exceptions to the DMCA or any other laws that might by crossed by this type of exploration.

On Apple's part, I'd like to see a much wider berth given to developers in the approval process and a simplification of the publishing rules. Make the rules rigid and easy to follow - of course totally public and transparent. Provide more disclaiming language to remove Apple itself from any liability involving complaints against an application or its developers as well. Frankly, these types of systems work best when they're as simple as possible. The more intricate you make them the more problems you'll cause and the stickier you can get with legal tangles. Next up is a complete revamp of the app store which should start by breaking it out of the music store and further allowing it to be decoupled completely from iTunes. It should work in a regular web browser, just like buying one of their computers.

Currently, I'd put Apple on the hook for an objectionable or actionable approved application. Such as something that used other's copyrighted work, etc.

I won't hold my breath for this to happen, but I think it needs to happen to have the app store flourish with great quality applications into the future, not just a high volume of them.

So I guess, then, that you want some NGO to be enforcing these limits? What authority would they have?

I originally had the word "very" in the government part because I do think some industries need regulation. I'll edit it back in to make the point less contradictory to the last one.

The handset issue is part of an already very regulated coms industry. Seeing as how the only way for the operators to make any money at all is by licensing spectrum that belongs to the government, I think it's fair for the government to make certain stipulations, especially when the licensing can produce near-monopolies or cartels in some regions. Both situations which already have many laws associated with them.

Unlocked handsets are a way for companies to play on a more level field and also for consumers to be able to freely use what they've fully paid for. In the case of a subsidy, I can fully understand a lock until the subsidy is reclaimed - this will help prevent people defrauding the carrier and/or handset reseller. Mandatory unlocking provisions already exist in many countries. I thought they existed in the US as well, but it might just be company policy with some carriers for some of their products (ie. non-iPhone handsets).

OK--who are you, and what have you done with the real Bruno?



tanstaafl.

Ha. Like I've said before, while I think they make the best computers (over-all), and I think they're leading a number of markets and I think they know how to run one hell of a money-train business, I don't think they the saintliest of companies, nor do I agree with many decisions and actions they make/take. Sometimes they're only the best of the worst. I think my point is, that despite what a few people may think I'm not a "fanboy."

In late 2006, cell phone unlocking was exempted from violating the DMCA. Beyond that, I'm not aware of any specific laws.

T-Mobile would unlock a phone 90 days after service started or after you bought the new phone. AT&T will unlock a phone at the end of a contract, except the iPhone. Not sure about Verizon or Sprint.

I'm still waiting for any of these companies with an app store (Apple, Google, RIM, etc) to finally wake up and realize this. Sorry, I have to get a little off topic here for a rant:

When I first got the G1, I probably did what a lot of people did, which was check every day to find out if there were any cool new apps. I was religious about it, and I was fully aware of every single app available for the phone. Even doing this was difficult, as I'd basically have to sort the apps by release, and remember on my own which was the last one I saw.

But after about three months, I have totally stopped caring. It is virtually impossible to find anything good in that mess. Every time I look now, all I see are fart apps (the cliche is completely true), soundboards, and other apps that are just garbage. I know there are good apps out there, but I have to read about them on my desktop PC first, and then go to my phone to download them. That's a step backwards.

I'm waiting for Google to realize that having only two methods to make things "easier" to find [categories, and sorting by date or popularity] is simply not enough.

*end rant*

A friend of mine released a nice app for the iPhone which will notify you of new apps as well as allow you to set strike points for desired price levels for specific apps. The kist of planned features was quite long and it would really be a much better interface than the actual App Store app on the iPhone. When you click "buy" it of course takes you to the actual Apple App for the purchase.

I haven't checked it out since the early releases, so I'm not sure how far he is at this point. The program is called AppSniper and should also be available as a free release.

It's a good idea. I'd like something like that for Android. But how does the app handle older apps? What if I bought an iPhone today, could I use the app to find older applications? And if he adds a way to browse the app store via the criteria you want, won't Apple shut him down for duplicating functionality that's built into the phone?

It handles older apps through its search interface. Search and "New" are two distinct tabs in the app. You can also block specific apps and developers from showing up in your search results.

There is no rule for the app store that you can't release an app duplicating the functionality of another app, even Apple's own built in ones. That excuse that you've seen handed down with some rejections is just BS, since Apple reserves the right to reject any application for any reason.

He's had multiple revisions all approved.

Oh, I know it's BS, but that's what they're saying. All I'm saying is that the same logic could be applied to your friend's app, regardless of whether it's accurate or justified. They've acted more hypocritically in the past than that...

Apple should just save time and just write "Because" in the reason why any particular app is rejected.

Absolutely, and he didn't know whether it would be approved initially or not, which lead to a number of fall-back plans. Things did work out for the approval though, he just hasn't devoted the time/energy to really make it the defacto way to search the store unfortunately. Now there are likely a number of apps that do similar things.

So what is their reasoning behind rejecting something that duplicates a capability already built in ? If that's bad why did they make Safari for windows.

The approval process is a black box. No one outside Apple, and I suspect barely anyone within it, know why any particular app is rejected when a BS reason is given.

I mean, there are definitely legitimate ones, such as, "your app crashes when this button is pressed" or "you've included an Apple copyrighted image or an image of an iPhone in your app." Tons of legitimate and correctable reasons come down the pipe for rejections. These are usually minor annoyances that can sometimes drag on because the evaluators at Apple won't necessarily list them all at once, leaving you to submit the app repeatedly until the issues are all resolved. These cases are workable because there's usually something very specific that needs to be addressed and Apple has been better about pointing out exactly what that is. Though sometimes you have to ask and that too can take a while. In the past you might have received something like "your app includes an inappropriate image" or some similar note, leaving you to try and figure out what image they're talking about. My friend's app actually needed revisions to a number of things, including the app icon I had made him, before it finally got approved.

Apple's latest and greatest rejection... A dictionary...

I haven't seen this story hit the "mainstream" yet, but hopefully it makes the rounds. Apple need a lot more attention to their app store and really need to be shamed into doing the right thing. Hopefully on a permanent basis and not this app-by-app shaming we've been getting over the past year.

Hahaha. That's the funniest thing I've read in a long time.

All of this complaining about the iPhone's App Store would seem to validate Palm's stance on this issue: that there will be an app store, but that apps would not be required to come from there.

It can allow Palm to be more choosy about the apps in its store without being called out for censorship. As such, you get to have an app store that can have fewer useless apps, making it a better place for the general consumer, while still allowing anything to be published, making the platform available to apps that Palm might not want to be associated with.

Now, I don't know how this has panned out in reality, but it seems to me like it's been confirmed that it's at least a more viable structure than the closed door App Store.

I'm fairly certain that this is how Google's App Market works too. However, this has done nothing to keep out dozens of fart apps.

It may be different in the US but the first thing we ever did when we got a new dictionary of any kind at school was to promptly look up all the rude words we could...

Already a problem by 1755, if Samuel Johnson is to be believed.

Peter

Phil Schiller responded to the dictionary rejection. Seems it was mostly a timing issue. Apple didn't want certain objectionable content in the app until the parental controls were ready. The developer didn't want to wait, and attempted to censor their own app to get it approved.

Schiller's message is largely irrelevant with regards to the whole App Store approval dilema, except perhaps for the last paragraph Gruber quotes which at least sounds promising. From seeing first-hand emails from the App Store reviewers, I'm also confident the rejection emails were nowhere near as clear as Schiller believes them to have been.

It still remains that the app is a dictionary and whether or not it includes one or all of the words mentioned, or additional urban slang, it should not receive a 17+ rating. Real paper dictionaries don't and other industries, such as the movie industrs, don't rate their wares with such an iron fist and so little wiggle room.

This won't be the last shocking story about the app store approval process we see.

Agreed. And I never understand when they use this reasoning, while at the same time all the same content and FAR worse is easily accessible via mobile Safari.

And it's not like Apple hasn't misused the "objectionable content" rejection before. Didn't they do that to a Twitter app, because they saw a swear word in a random tweet?

Safari, along with YouTube, and some other features could be disabled with 2.0. Apple is trying to ensure that parental controls exist for parents giving their kids an iPod Touch or an iPhone. I'm not defending what Apple is doing here, but this seems to be their main motivation in the case of this dictionary application.

After all, if kids have ready access to dictionaries whenever they need them, that completely undermines the message of "abstinence-only" literacy education.

Peter

Heh. First thing I thought on reading this was "undermine? oh, no... it'll only help abstinence from literary education!"

*sigh*

I finally went through the FCC filings, and there are still a lot of questions.

Full FCC PDF links are: AT&T, Apple, and Google

AT&T claims that they had nothing to do with the Google Voice rejection, but does confirm AT&T and Apple have agreements in place to ensure no VOIP apps over 3G are approved. An interesting tidbit of that though is this:

Basically meaning if someone jailbreaks their phone and runs a VOIP app over the AT&T network, Apple doesn't have to try and stop it. AT&T also claims this:

Apple and AT&T also agreed to deny apps that violate AT&T's terms of service, such as an app that redirects a TV signal (IE, why SlingPlayer was shot down until it worked only over WiFi).

Apple's response had a lot of interesting tidbits on how their approval process works. Average time an app is in queue is 14 days. 40 full time staffers review apps, and 2 reviewers must review each app. 20% of apps are rejected initially due to bugs or other issues, but the majority of those are fixed by the developer and resubmitted. Lots of fluff about protecting people, and the really interesting tidbit about Google Voice is this one:

Basically it sounds like they got their hand caught in the cookie jar, and are now trying to backpeddle. "We didn't reject it, honest!. We just haven't approved it yet".

Google's response was pretty useless, due to this:


So, some interesting info came out of the inquiry, but the most useful information was censored, leaving us only with Apple's side of the story. I really have to wonder here why Google did censor their response. They may not want to harm relations with Apple over this situation, even though they stand in the best position to help force better improvements to the App Store approval process.

Tom, I had mostly the same reactions as you, although I'm far more anti-Apple on the whole thing. I'll admit, Google wussed out majorly here, and I'm really disappointed in them, but I'm actually angry over Apple's response here. The whole "oh, hey, no, it's not actually rejected, we're still reviewing it! and hey, we were just protecting everyone the whole time! bye bye!" Every podcast I've listened to has compared Apple to a little child that got its hand caught in a cookie jar, making rambling excuses to try to get out of it.

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.

Ugh, the whole thing annoys me. Frankly I can see why AT&T would be annoyed by this app, seeing as how it does, in fact, let you send free SMS messages, obviating the need for a text message plan, but of course this isn't the issue here. I'm still not sold on AT&T's claims that they had nothing to do with it. If Apple's the little kid who got caught, AT&T is the sibling who happened to be in the same room at the time, and there's no way to tell if it coerced the sibling into getting those cookies.


On a completely separate note, two weeks is a long time for your app to be in approval. In that time, a developer's app could have been on the Android market for...two weeks. And that's actually two weeks plus an apparent 1 in 5 chance that it'll be longer than that.

Compare this to the recent report that apparently only 1% of apps from the Google App Market get removed from the market (100% get on in the first place). That comes to about 60 apps, and supposedly those are mostly removed for offensive and malicious reasons. Naturally, I can understand why the install base of Android phones is less appealing to developers, but I've got to imagine that the lack of any hassle from Apple would be appealing as well.


My ultimate hope is that this will force Apple to be more open about the approval process. I think everyone has wanted real reasons for app rejections, and for the app store to be more open than it is.

The overarching reason I've been hearing from Apple for why this all exists is that they're trying to protect the experience the users have with their phones. Okay, that's fine, but what if the user wants to opt out of Apple's loving oversight (like Bitt was saying)? On my Android phone, I have the option to check a box in the settings that lets me install software from other sources, so I could just install an app from someone's web site, bypassing the app market entirely.

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.

Oh yeah, I'm not an Arrington fan (SCREW YOU, ARRINGTON!). I'm not going to take their word for it. And my apologies, I could have sworn I'd hear that the app was out briefly and then rejected.

Technically, the app did not "replace" functionality. I'll concede that it "duplicates" functionality. You still need the official iPhone dialer and SMS app to handle calls and texts to and from your AT&T number. And I don't know how it works on the iPhone app (I guess nobody does), but actually, on the G1 I still use the built-in dialer too. Regardless, I think the way they're putting it is not valid. And their response is not acceptable.

From a technology standpoint, Apple (to a small extent) and AT&T (to a much larger extent) should be a little afraid of what Google Voice represents. I must admit that I keep finding myself using more and more of Google Voice. At first it was exclusively a way to give out a second number for my business. But now I'm giving it out a lot more, using the texting features (I've never liked texting before, probably because I can't imagine paying for such tiny amounts of data), and the visual voicemail is a really nice feature.

I guess I can't be all that upset, in the end. Once my contract with AT&T is up, I'll be switching to TMobile (so I can get 3G on my G1). When I'm there I'll get more minutes, and even though I had to buy my phone at full price, I have to admit that it's going to be nice to not be under contract.

There were a couple of other GV apps from third parties on the app store that got pulled when Apple decided they didn't like Google's app.

Yeah, I was definitely aware of those. I wish the FCC was, though. I'd like to see Apple try say that those apps weren't rejected.

Google is under NDA with Apple. It's likely that some (or much) of what was discussed in their filing was subject to the NDA and therefore not able to be made public. Able to be disclosed to the FCC, yes, but to you and me, no.

Page 3 of Apple's response has the 3 apps that were pulled as well, as the FCC specifically asked about them.

Google uncensored their response:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/09/our-complete-letter-to-fcc-regarding.html

So now there is a conflict in the responses, as Google says flat out that Google Voice was rejected by Phil Schiller directly on July 7th.

Definitely hands caught in the cookie jar mentality at Apple. Now to see how they responds to this one, or what the FCC does.