Apple's response to the FCC's questions about iPhone app rejections and Google Voice

Apple’s response to the FCC’s questions about iPhone app rejections and Google Voice

Let’s talk about this, shall we?

We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s inquiry …

I’m sure you are.

Apple’s goal is to provide our customers with the best possible user experience.

This is the truest part of the letter. I do believe that Apple overall feels that their actions are for ‘the greater good’ (if it can be said that a company as a whole shares a single opinion). That is not an excuse, of course, and everyone knows which road is paved with good intentions.

We created an approval process … to … [among other things] safeguard children from inappropriate content …

Oh no! Think of the children! Well, okay, I guess we can stop here. Or…

Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application …

This is odd. I was sure I remembered reading this on an official Google blog, but when searching for it, all I could find were dozens of blogs linking back to this one TechCrunch piece.  It appears that the closest Google came to stating their app was rejected was this:

Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store.

Very careful wording. I wonder if, even then, Google anticipated something like this fiasco? And:

We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.

Now this is certainly a strong implication that Google had given up on having an app in the App Store, but again, it is worded carefully enough so as to be deniable later.

Regardless, this is only a game of semantics. ‘Postponed indefinitely’ is not any better than ‘rejected’.

Back to Apple.

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application.

While it is refreshing to have such a clear statement on the matter, I don’t think this is what anyone was expecting. But I still have to wonder. We only have the rumours to go on, and yet, John Gruber doesn’t usually stake his reputation on things like this unless he’s pretty sure:

A reliable little birdie has informed me that it was indeed AT&T that objected to Google Voice apps for the iPhone. It’s that simple.

I’m hardly calling Apple liars, but there is something here that still doesn’t add up.

Apple alone makes the final decisions to approve or not approve iPhone applications.

This seems like weasel words. Yes, Apple is free to approve or reject an app in the ‘final’ stage of the process, as long as it hasn’t already been rejected by AT&T right off the bat (based on their pre-existing contract, or otherwise).

As discussed in the response to Question 5, Apple provides guidelines to developers in our developer agreement as well as on its web site regarding prohibited categories of applications.

However, the ‘duplicating functionality’ reason that Apple has repeatedly used to reject applications, and mentions specifically in this letter, STILL does not appear anywhere in Apple’s agreement or any of their documentation. There are several other such reasons that Apple pulls out of their hat, seemingly at random, and they seem to come up with new ones all the time.

The process has become so widely known to be capricious that entire web sites have sprung up in attempt to enumerate possible rejection reasons, since this is something Apple has proven to be uninterested in doing: App Rejected, Application Submission Review, Reject Database

… most of the review process is consumed with quality issues and software bugs, providing feedback to developers so they can fix applications. Applications that are fixed and resubmitted are approved… . If we find that an application has a problem … we send the developer a note describing the reason why the application will not be approved as submitted.

Really? Like you did in this case with Riverturn?

Me: “Is there something we can change or alter in order to regain compliance and get back in the Store?”

Richard: “I can’t say.”

Me: “Well if we can’t figure out the issue then how will we know whether to resubmit the app. And how will we know whether to invest in any other development efforts? Future apps could be impacted.”

Richard: “I can’t help you with that”

Again from the letter:

We also let them know they can contact the app review team or technical support, or they can write to us for further guidance.

Again from Riverturn:

Me: “Surely someone there at Apple asked you to make this phone call. Can I speak with that person about this?”

Richard: “I am the only one you can speak with on this subject.”

Me: “There has to be someone there I can actually have a back and forth with so that we can make some strategic decisions on whether this partnership makes any sense.”

Richard: “You can only talk to me”

Now, granted, the quotations from Riverturn’s blog have been transcribed from a verbal conversation, and this transcription was done by Riverturn themselves, so it amounts to hearsay. But there is also the fact that Apple has outright refused to send any e-mails to any of the developers involved in the Google Voice, obviously because they did not want any public record of those conversations, lest they end up with people writing the sorts of things I am writing at this moment.

At the very least, it is clear that Apple says very different things to developers than they say to everyone else.

( Edit : bah, I had hoped to get this in before Gruber, but he beat me to it and covers many of the same things. I didn’t read his article before writing mine, I swear! Some of us have day jobs, y’know.)