Google Voice for iPhone to become a Web App
Google Voice’s iPhone application was rejected from the iPhone app store, a move that the FCC is looking into. Now, it appears that Google may be working to get around Apple and AT&T by developing an iPhone optimized web application for Google Voice.
According to The New York Times:
Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app—except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.
This is precisely what Google did recently with Latitude for iPhone, when Apple “requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google (Google) to serve maps tiles.” Using the Web to make calls on iPhone is nothing new or overly complex either: Jajah launched an iPhone optimized interface for VoIP calling all the way back in 2007.
In other words, assuming Google goes ahead and launches a Web interface for Voice, the only option AT&T and Apple will have for keeping customers
away from it would be to block access to the URL the app lives on. And if
that were happen, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the feds don’t get extremely serious about the anti-competitive nature of what Apple and AT&T would be trying to do.
[cb type=product ]Google Voice[/cb] [cb type=product ]iPhone[/cb]