Google Voice iPhone application has been officially pulled out from the App store by Apple. Apple seems to have rejected Google Voice iPhone App as an iPhone application and the reason presented for rejection is that Google Voice duplicates many features of iPhone. This information has also been confirmed to be true by one of the Google’s spokes person. He has said, “Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple iTunes Application Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users – for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.”
Mr. Richard Chipman from Apple first conveyed this bad news to Mr. Sean Kovacs from Google Voice. Mr. Sean Kovacs has written in his blog, “Richard Chipman from Apple just called – he told me they’re removing GV Mobile from the App Store due to it duplicating features that the iPhone comes with. He did not actually specify which features; I assume it’s the whole app in general. He wouldn’t send a confirmation email either – too scared I would post it [online].”
It has also been noticed that Google’s VoiceCentral that is another voice application launched by Google, GV Mobile and two other applications that have been developed using Google Voice platform has also been removed from iTunes. However, reasons for removing Google Voice applications from the iTunes store have not yet been revealed and remains unclear.
Though, other than the point that Google Voice duplicates features of iPhone, Apple has not officially specified any other reasons for rejection many resources blame Apple’s intention to control iPhone apps. One of the important points that have been strikingly discussed about the rejection is that, the public are feeling that Apple has done this in order to save AT&T. If Google Voice were, permitted Google Voice would be offering all valuable services that come along with it for the users free that would definitely affect the income that is now collected from the users for offering the service by AT&T.
Google Voice that has been launched in the United States recently would pull together multiple phone numbers in which the user might be able to include his or her work and personal mobile numbers and landline numbers and get a single universal number. The best part is that things would be much simpler as this could be managed through the web. Google Voice would offer transcripts of voice mails and also an archive of all the messages that are sent and received. The service also offers low cost long distance international calls that would certainly benefit users. May be, these are all the main points that Apple considered to be a threat to AT&T’s existence and through out Google Voice from the Apple iPhone App store.