Apple App Store Rejects Google Voice iPhone App. AT&T to Blame?

Google Voice kep users excited when it first touched Mobile platform  last to last week with entry to Android, Blackberry native apps.

We were waiting impatiently for the iPhone App. And what da Hell. Apple hung up on Google, rejecting its Google Voice mobile app that would of allowed iPhone users to swap text messages for free.

The news via TechCrunch published yesterday quoted a Google spokesperson that says Google submitted its Google Voice mobile application to Apple six weeks ago. The Google spokesperson told TechCrunch,

“Apple did not approve the Google Voice application.”

We have seen the cult of App Store Rejections. This time, Apple went one step further in its disapproval with of Google’s voice technology and pulled another Google Voice related app from the store, third-party GV Mobile, on the basis of duplicate functionality.

The move stirs the ongoing debate about the openness of the App Store. It also brings into question AT&T’s influence on Apple given that AT&T appears to have the most to lose if the Google Voice mobile application was available to AT&T customers with iPhones. Google Voice mobile would allow you to send and receive text messages via your Google Voice phone number via your iPhone, circumventing AT&T text messaging charges.

App Store today is too much driven by Nation’s worst and most outdated telecom  provider, AT&T. They have influenced slow growth in the industry. Most users today feel that AT&T is no more than A big steamy pile of junk.

Google introduced the Google Voice mobile app in July. It is now available for Blackberry and Android-powered phones.

Pointing Fingers back to Source of Steam

What’s shocking though in the case of the official Google Voice app getting rejected by Apple, is the presence of Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the Apple board of directors. One would have thought that this sort of presence would grant Google some sort of privileges when it comes to apps for iPhone. However, not even a personal approval by Phil Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, didn’t save third party GV Mobile creator Sean Kovacs from getting his app pulled either.

As per the PCWorld,

The problem must come from somewhere else, most likely – as several technology blogs point out – from AT&T. The wireless carrier, Apple’s exclusive wireless partner in the U.S., gets the blame for this one. As it was the case with the crippling of SlingPlayer and Skype for iPhone, AT&T seems to be flexing its muscles over which apps Apple should allow in its App Store, of course depending on its business interest. In this case, Google Voice’s free SMS service and cheap long-distance calls could have made a dent in the carrier’s revenue streams.

Of course, none of this is officially confirmed and both Apple and AT&T are silent on the situation, but from a users’ point of view, we are the ones in the loss. Or, in other words, Apple in conjunction with AT&T is curbing innovation of their products/services from third party companies.

May be it’s high time for Apple to looks for alternates – Verizon