All Articles Tagged fcc response

AT&T, according to the WSJ, has asked the FCC to investigate Google Voice for violating federal call-blocking rules. Basically, Google isn’t letting Google Voice users connect to pricy adult chat lines and conference services. (The nerve!)

Slapped around by the FCC a couple of years ago on the same charges, AT&T wants Google to get a taste of that medicine, and likely wants to throw some of the heat they caught over the whole Apple rejection/still-studying Google Voice debacle right back Google’s way.

Google’s blog responds thusly:

AT&T is trying to make this about Google’s support for an open Internet, but the comparison just doesn’t fly. The FCC’s open Internet principles apply only to the behavior of broadband carriers — not the creators of Web-based software applications. Even though the FCC does not have jurisdiction over how software applications function, AT&T apparently wants to use the regulatory process to undermine Web-based competition and innovation.

Ah, new technology and the laws that trail far back behind it. Google may be technically right in that they’re something new and different than what the law was originally designed to govern. Clearly the spirit of openness — which Google pays enormous lip-service to when it suits them — is what’s important, though. Isn’t it Google?

[Via Gizmodo]

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Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris has sent TiPb a response to the now fully public Google FCC disclosure, which Dieter posted earlier today.

“We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google.”

So it’s either Apple-said/Google-said, some broken-telephone (the irony!) between the two companies, or a mix of both?

Regardless of the “was it rejected or is it still being studied” tempest, Google Voice and Google Latitude remain absent from Apple’s App Store, and all companies seem to agree on the reason: they duplicate what Apple considers to be core functionality of the iPhone, and that’s something Apple currently doesn’t want to see duplicated.

Since it’s Apple’s product, that’s their prerogative (especially if they consider Google competitive in this space), though if Google Voice and Google Latitude are features a user needs, they’re not going to consider an iPhone. When/if that becomes a huge portion of the user base, Apple may have to reconsider. Either way, Google is still going ahead with WebApp versions for now and everyone else is just going to have to wait and see..

In a post on their official blog, Google has let the world know that, “in the interest of transparency,” they’re allowing the FCC to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request to fully publish their response about the whole Google Voice Rejection Brouhaha, and it’s an interesting read, to say the least. You can grab the PDF of the letter right here.

The letter, which had been previously redacted, claims that not only did Apple fully reject both Google Voice and Latitude, but the rejection came after conversations between top executives, including Phil Shiller. This contradicts Apple’s claim that they had not rejected the apps, but merely reviewing them in a more extensive way.

The reason for the rejections (as Google calls them) is what you probably expected: “duplicate functionality.” Google writes:

Apple’s representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality

The story is much the same for Google Latitude, but has a bit more shadenfreude to it since the functionality that’s being duplicated is “a version of Google Maps.” Google also details the dates of calls, emails, and in-person conversations between Alan Eustace of Google (VP of Engineering and Research) and Phil Schiller of Apple (VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, but you knew that).

So… the worm and turned and Google’s letting the world know they feel rejected. How do you feel after this latest development?

Apple “rejected” Google Voice for iPhone from the iTunes App Store, the FCC asked Apple, AT&T, and Google to answer some questions about that rejection. Now those questions have been answered-ish, and boy did it result in a flurry of posts here on TiPb and more importantly — an impressive and penetrating degree of analysis from our commenters.

Have trouble keeping track? Or just want to know what you happily avoided? No worries, we have you covered:

• Apple Responds to FCC Questions (Google and AT&T as Well)
• Apple: 8500 Apps to Review a Week by 40 Odd Reviews
• AT&T To Reconsider VoIP Applications Over 3G? Yeahbuwhat Apple VoIP apps?
• Do Other Countries Lose Out on Apps Because of AT&T Policies?
• Apple iPhone is a Restaurant, Not a Super Market, and They Should Say So on the Sign
• Apple Afraid Google is Taking Over the iPhone?
• Apple Kicking Themselves They Didn’t Buy GrandCentral (Google Voice) First?

Google bought Grand Central and rebranded it Google Voice, now Apple has rejected Google Voice for the iPhone and the FCC is looking into it. Based on the responses Apple had given the FCC, it looks like they might be afraid Google is taking over the iPhone and Google Voice is a big piece of that. So what if Apple had bought Grand Central instead? Or what if that new world-class data center Apple is building will be home to a Google Voice competitor? (Tip of the theoretical hat to Derek in our comments, who delightfully calls such a thing iVoice).

GrandCentral (not to be confused with Apple’s upcoming multicore processor handler, Grand Central Dispatch) was an innovative service that gave users a new phone number that could replace any number of other and assorted numbers (one line to ring them all), along with SMS, transcribed voice mail, conference calling, call switching, call screening, etc. It was purchased by Google in 2007 for $95 million, and relaunched in 2009 as Google Voice.

If Apple had bought it instead, they would of course now be spared the headaches surrounding the above mentioned rejection and investigation. But they’d also have a fairly compelling set of services to roll up into the iPhone… Read the rest of this entry »

Techcrunch has an interesting “rebuttal” up regarding Apple’s response to the FCC over the rejection of Google Voice. I use the quotes because I think the rebuttal part itself is off-target, while the conclusion is fairly spot on. Worst things first:

[Apple's response] strongly suggests that the Google Voice app replaces much of the core Apple iPhone OS function. This certainly isn’t accurate, and we believe the statement is misleading. More details below, but in general the iPhone app is a very light touch and doesn’t interfere with any native iPhone apps at all.

The crux of their argument is that, while Google Voice provides separate voice dialing, voice mail, and SMS functionality outside Apple’s built-in Phone and Messages apps, users are still free to use the built in apps. More specifically, that Google Voice only replaces these things when the Google Voice phone number is used.

Um. Yeah.

Users, at least in part, are going to be replacing the AT&T number with the Google Voice number (likely the reason to get the Google Voice number for a segment of users). Ergo, they’ll be replacing the built in Phone and SMS apps with the Google Voice app.

No big deal, though, right? Why should Apple care if people replace Phone and Messages with Google Voice?

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As part of their response to the FCC’s investigation into the rejection of Google Voice, Apple stated that they 1) receive about 8500 apps and app updates to review each week, 2) each app is reviewed by two reviewers, and 3) employ more than 40 full-time, trained reviewers.

Assuming that (3) doesn’t mean there are scads more part-time, untrained reviewers doing grunt work in the dark, sweaty back room (more on that in a moment), some math has been run by Mike Ash:

With 17,000 [8500 x 2] reviews per week and 45 reviewers, that means each reviewer performs 378 reviews per week. At 40 hours per week, this is 9.4 reviews per hour, or one review every 6.4 minutes.

Ash points out how this means months of work by a developer is left to the tender mercies of less than 10 minutes (counting overtime) with someone tasked to look at almost 400 other apps that same week. Can we get a “yikes!”

Back to part-time, untrained reviewers, Marco.org hazards to guess:

There could be 41 full-timers and 40 more part-timers. There’s a lot of evidence to indicate that most (if not all) of the front-line reviews are by non-native-English speakers and on schedules that strongly imply that they’re offshore. This may be the cause of a lot of the frustrating rejections in which the reviewer didn’t understand something about the application or description that seems clear to most Americans.

To recapitulate. Between iPhone users and 8500 weekly app submissions (each reviewed twice), stands possibly an unknown number of outsourced, untrained frontliners, 40 odd trained, full-time second liners, an unquantified star-chamber of executive reviews, and ultimately one Phil Schiller who may or may not email the developer or a blog (or two) about it?

Oh, and Steve Jobs.

Mike Ash (via Marco.org) makes this point following the FCC responses today:

Ignoring the question of why it’s Apple’s job to prevent their customers from breaking AT&T’s terms of service, it’s interesting to note just how much this policy is centered on the United States. The iPhone is sold in dozens of different countries and works with dozens of different cellular carriers all over the world. You can be certain that each one of those carriers has different terms of service. Why is AT&T so privileged that their terms of service, and theirs alone, are the ones that Apple looks at when deciding whether to reject or accept any given app? It’s quite likely that people all over the world are missing out on great iPhone apps that their cellular carriers would permit them to use just because AT&T does not permit Americans to use them.

This by way of saying, for example, because AT&T prohibits SlingPlayer from running over 3G, users in Canada (on Rogers), the UK (on 02), Japan (on SoftBank), etc. are also prevented from using SlingPlayer of 3G.

Apple certainly makes only specific mention of AT&T in their consideration process. However, AT&T was the first iPhone carrier signed, so perhaps there’s something in that original deal that makes it so — or is it just that Apple is headquartered in the US?

Now, presuming those other, international carriers aren’t just sighing in relief that AT&T takes the hit on this so they don’t have to (anyone think Rogers, O2, SoftBank, et al. are dying to take the network hit that comes with an uber-popular, functionality surfacing device like the iPhone doing high-bandwidth tasks like streaming TV shows and movies?

There are certainly examples enough of region-specific apps (AT&T’s own apps are just in the US), and apps that are missing from just one regional app store (Skype is not in the Canadian App Store, reportedly due to a patent dispute).

As mentioned previously, Sling has submitted a 3G-enabled version of SlingPlayer for non-US App Stores (Canada, UK, Japan, etc.), so we’ll soon see.

As part of the responses to the FCC’s inquiry into the rejection of Google Voice from the iPhone App Store, AT&T stated the following:

As noted above, AT&T regularly reviews its policies regarding features and capabilities available through the devices we offer in order to provide an attractive range of options for our customers. Consistent with this approach, we plan to take a fresh look at possibly authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone for use on AT&T’s 3G network.

This was couched in some legal arguments stating economists and jurists allow deals where one party’s core business is protected against adverse actions taken by another party — in this case AT&T is saying VoIP would hurt their revenue from voice plans, so it’s okay for Apple to protect AT&T from that hurt.

However, AT&T also says that while Apple agreed not to produce a VoIP app for the iPhone without AT&T’s consent, they had no obligation to “take action against” a third party app.

So, presumably Apple is not allowed to make a VoIP app unless AT&T says okay, but Apple’s just being kind to AT&T by not allowing Skype (for example) to use the 3G network?

And if AT&T is changing their mind and thinking of allowing a VoIP app, and the only VoIP app they say they’re allowed to allow is one by Apple…

Conspiracy theorists, where does that leave us?