How to Fix the App Store

The Google Voice stalemate highlights the problems in Apple's iPhone app approval process. Here are some ways Apple can make the process smoother

By Arik Hesseldahl

Anyone who reads my blog, column, or Tweets—or who calls me for work or any other reason—likely knows by now that I have become an avid user of Google Voice. I tap the Web-based call-management service to handle work and personal voice mail, receive audio messages from readers, and even record interviews with sources while on the road.

Fortunately for us smartphone addicts, Google Voice is available as a downloadable app on Research In Motion's BlackBerry. You can also use it on Apple's iPhone via Web browser. But if you want to download it onto the iPhone, you'll need to await the resolution of a controversy that underscores the increasingly thorny relationship between Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), as well as the troublesome process whereby applications get reviewed for use on the iPhone.

To recap, while Apple hasn't formally rejected app for distribution via iTunes, it has raised objections about the potential for some Google Voice features to supplant certain iPhone features. Google Voice's mail offerings compete with Apple's visual voice-mail tool, for instance. It also has a dialer that looks a lot like the traditional phone-dialing screen for the iPhone. Plus, the contract that makes AT&T (T) the sole U.S. iPhone carrier forbids applications that connect Internet calls over the cellular data network. Bottom line: There's enough potential overlap to make Apple and AT&T antsy about giving Google free rein.

the fcc also wants to know what the holdup is

Apple has said it "continues to study" the issue, which I take to be code for "our lawyers are talking things over with their lawyers." The Federal Communications Commission also has said it may take a closer look at whether wireless carriers, in deciding which applications run on their networks, are taking steps that inhibit competition.

Meantime, in moves that smack of inconsistency if not a double standard, Apple has given the green light to other calling applications for the iPhone. Vonage (VG), a provider of Internet calling, has announced that its application has been approved and is going through testing. The Vonage app's features aren't known, but Vonage's service has several aspects similar to those found on Google Voice.

Another app, Line2 from Toktumi, has also been approved recently, and RingCentral, which I reviewed recently, has an iPhone app with many features that are nearly identical to those found on Google Voice.

There are compelling reasons why Apple might want to restrict these applications. Contractual restrictions are one. Users of the iPhone are voracious consumers of data services, and it would be unfortunate if a too-popular Internet calling application overwhelmed AT&T's data network. And Google Voice's free text-messaging feature undercuts AT&T's very profitable texting service.

vague and inconsistent

Why do so many other call-management apps get the green light when Google Voice doesn't? Quite possibly it has something to do with the growing potential rivalry between the two companies. Google, for instance, is spearheading the alliance behind Android, a mobile-phone operating system that competes with Apple's.

But the Google Voice controversy is also indicative of the convoluted nature of Apple's application-approval process. A growing number of software developers have made no secret in the blogosphere that they find the process opaque and unpredictable.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.