A previous article, FCC
Investigation of Apple's Google Voice Rejection Could Become a
Political Mess, looks at why the FCC should let the market
decide.
A small world seems to be split between Google lovers and Apple
lovers over Google Voice for the iPhone. Any AT&T lovers are
staying well hidden.
As for the FCC, who loves a bureaucracy unless it is giving you what
you want?
The FCC's Role
A little perspective, and the answers to the FCC questions can be
seen as a PR exercise and an initial skirmish in the next battle of the
Internet. Google and Apple know that Microsoft has been slow to react
to the opportunity and, while under current management, is very
unlikely to catch up. The FCC has plenty else to do, rather than
entangle itself in an area where it lacks the authority to enforce a
decision.
Recommending limits on cellphone exclusives seems a higher priority,
certainly for the Senate. Sorting out various fees like those for text
messages is another. Increasing network capacity seems to be another.
Deciding at what point VoIP should be available on all networks is
another. So the current FCC response, after having the sense to stand
back, is to review innovation in the wireless industry - that is, to
look as though it is doing something in this area.
Stepping on Each Other's Toes
Apple, having created the iPhone platform, doesn't want any single
company to dominate a major part of its market. In effect, swap
Microsoft for Google, particularly as Google offers a rival platform.
Apple knows only too well what happens when new versions of critical
software are delayed while being readily available on a rival
platform.
If Google had thought beyond the software - the "wouldn't it be cool
if we made it like this" stage - it would have recognised Apple's
paranoia on the subject. Basically, if Google wants Apple as more than
an occasional hands-off partner, it needs to divest itself of all
involvement in operating systems like Android
and Chrome
OS. (See Is Google
Apple's Partner or Competitor? for another perspective.)
Even that may not be enough, as Google seems to have decided that
the best way to compete with Microsoft is to offer an "ad supported"
equivalent of as much as possible - and Apple doesn't believe the "Do
No Evil" company slogan.
Don't Compete with Developers
At least Apple has recognised a large part of Microsoft's developer
problem. Apple so far has concentrated its development efforts on
improving the platform, not on developing apps. It is staying away from
competing with developers who offer more than OS add-ons. Apple doesn't
need to keep expanding its in-house app portfolio to make money, so it
made a sample game and left the field open for all those who are
reasonable about the rules.
When you join any community - be it a church, group, or online- you
agree, implicitly or explicitly, to obey the community rules. If you
don't want to, you leave or are asked to. Some of those rules are
written, some are unwritten but should be obvious, and in the grey
areas you tend to be given the benefit of the doubt if your overall
contribution to the community is positive (or likely to be). To enforce
the rules, many online communities have moderators, and, for better or
for worse, it is Apple for the App Store.
The App Store rules are a series of Apple guidelines, the AT&T
customer Terms of Service (in the USA), and the previously discussed
Unwritten Rule
behind App Store Rejections, which says that if an app is likely to
take away business from Apple or the carrier, it will be rejected.
VoIP vs. Carriers
Google Voice's cheap international calls breaks both the unwritten
rule and the AT&T/Apple agreement "not to include functionality in
any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T's cellular
network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without
obtaining AT&T's permission" (from Apple
Answers the FCC's Questions).
However, if enough people decide to leave AT&T and the iPhone
because using Google Voice over the Web isn't good enough, I'm sure
Apple will let Google Voice be part of the App Store. So even if you
believe the future of telephony is VoIP - and I do - apps that offer it
will be restricted to WiFi until either the FCC orders all US carriers
to make it available or AT&T sees that it won't have a business
without it.
The trouble with VoIP is not that it is disruptive technologically -
voice went digital decades ago. It is that people expect VoIP to reduce
their phone bill to almost nothing, and currently minutes are the usual
way for deciding how much we pay the carrier. Data download plans are
an add-on. It will take time and a lot of marketing for most to switch
from "numbers of minutes" to "amounts of data", especially if there is
little difference in the monthly bill.
It is the size of that monthly bill that, apart from the costs of
running AT&T, funds the network improvements and pays back the cost
of buying wireless spectrum in the FCC auctions - and subsidises
iPhones. And the subsidy is what persuades many to buy an iPhone plan.
As Tim Cook said in the last conference call "smartphones in general
are being sold in larger numbers and environments where postpay is the
primary payment mechanism". Until Apple knows how to sell large numbers
of iPhones to the prepay market, a drop in monthly bills means a drop
in subsidies means a drop in iPhone sales.
Google and the Cloud
Another part of the Google vision is that automatic
synching of address book contacts into the Google cloud is
desirable. It is certainly desirable for Google, and you may even think
it is desirable for you, if you are asked about it.
However, if you have business contacts on your iPhone, your company
may not feel the same way. As the new OS X links to
Exchange, it will make adding corporate contacts much easier. Approval
of Google Voice could have stopped iPhone take-up by major
organisations, especially as Apple has "yet to obtain any assurances
from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways."
Elsewhere in the conference call Tim Cook said "almost 20% of the
Fortune 100 have purchased at least 10,000 units or more and there's
now multiple corporations and government agencies who have purchased in
excess of 25,000 each", so this would be a heavy loss.
Software for mapping social networks has been around for years. If
Google analyses what kind of links you send to your friends from all
the links you look at in Chrome, Maps, etc., it can send you highly
targeted ads. That may not cause you a problem in your social life, and
Google's business is advertising - the more effective the
click-throughs, the more of the ad business will go to Google.
Is Google Good for Business?
There could be a more serious issue when analysis and targeting is
extended to any business contacts you look up during business hours.
Your company could start losing sales if those leads are passed to a
competitor, and what is advertising but a way of generating sales leads
for a business. But maybe you want to trust that Google will "do no
evil". Apple obviously doesn't or it wouldn't have asked - or maybe it
just prefers the realism of "only the paranoid survive"*.
Google writes plenty of good software, and much of this is available
on or through the iPhone, but does it believe the power of its vision
will sweep all before it, that it is the child of destiny? If it does,
there is obviously going to be a clash with Apple, which strongly
believes in a competing vision. This clash is an updated version of
"What programs run on the PC? What programs run on the server?"
For Apple, the iPhone platform is a Mac in the pocket, and the Cloud
is for backup. For Google, life is only lived on the Cloud. Neither
vision will win out totally, but where the boundaries are set is worth
billions. 
