If you haven’t heard by now, there is quite a battle going on between Google and Apple. Apple has refused to include the Google Voice application in the App Store, along with similar apps by other parties. The FCC is now investigating.
Apple claims that Google’s application would negatively impact the users experience with the iPhone’s native telephony and sms applications.
This is interesting. Google’s application is visually & behaviorally consistent with the native applications. It makes sense that Google’s application would be easier to use because of this consistency. Google’s application has some pretty basic functionality…
- To make phone calls by dialing numbers or choosing a contact from the address book
- To send/receive SMS messages
- To check voicemail
These features overlap entirely with Apple’s native interfaces. In my opinion, Google’s application would be most usable by making it feel consistent. To make it feel seamless.
Other applications have been removed from the store for being visually consistent with Apple’s interface elements. If your chat bubble is glossy, forget about being included. So, to me it sounds like Apple’s real problem is with people copying their style.
Apple’s designers are intelligent people. They understand the benefits of user interface consistency. Heck, they have been evangelizing it to OSX developers for years. Google get’s it too. Apple should be encouraging applications which seamlessly fit the iPhone’s style. They should be pushing back on the applications which break their user interface guidelines. A consistent look and feel would only serve to make things more usable.
It’s clear that there is a deeper issue here. What do you think is really going on? iPhone vs. Android? AT&T vs. Google Voice? Involving Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) leaving Apple’s board?
Comment your theories.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, the chat bubble controversy is strange. Why wouldn’t they treat the chat bubble as a device wide “control” that displays conversation threads?
But, from my reading of the letters to the FCC from both parties, Apple isn’t discouraging consistency with Google Voice as much as it doesn’t want Google to do a phone-like app at all on the iPhone. There wasn’t any wording in their letter that consistency was at issue. They were concerned with confusion from the overlap of functionality between the two pieces of software. Google’s phone doesn’t just use interface elements from Apple’s phone app, it could be a *replacement* for Apple’s phone app.
J.Penn hits the nail on the head IMO.
Watch out Apple you’re starting to sound like those whiny guys in Seattle when some one comes along and challenges your ’standard’…. with great innovation.
In technology, what goes around, comes around. Apple needs to be able to dance with all partners. Call your next product Rita Hayworth in fact…
She danced with all the greats…backwards, and in heels.
Cowboy up Apple.
@Jonathan – You’re absolutely right. The letters to the FCC sound as though Apple’s is afraid of an application which duplicates native functionality of the App.
Developers duplicate native functionality on the mac all the time without Apple whining. There’s something deeper going on.
The initial dock apps — Mail, Safari, iPod and Phone — have a special place in Apple’s pecking order. As the essential applications, my guess is Apple considers them above replacement. Even with the change to allow non-Safari browsers on the App Store, a quick look didn’t look like any used Mozilla or Opera back ends. They’re just new faces on the same WebKit view.
I’m not sure if there is anything deeper than that. My hope would be that Apple would prefer to integrate Google Voice functionality directly into the Phone and Messages applications. Not likely, but I can dream.
Long live the BlackBerry (Don’t Shoot, only joking)