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FCC Investigating Apple's Rejection of Google Voice iPhone Application

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John.B said:
Thrilledge said:
Looks like Schmidt called in a favor.

I believe he's really good friends with the President. :)
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I didn't think of that. If so, it pretty much adds fuel to the fire that says Schmidt's usefulness on the Apple board is over.
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And if that happens, that's a bad thing because...? Google brought a competing product to market, which brings choice, which forces competition, which fosters innovation. If they want to kick him offthe board, he can take his big 'ol multi-billion dollar company and go home.. To develope chrome.
 
If I was Apple and AT&T, I would be ******** bricks right now. The FCC has total control over this form of communication, and can set rules without approval of anyone. Sure, they could fight the FCC, but it would cost them a boat load, just make the FCC angry, and they would probably lose anyway.
 
jne381 said:
If I was Apple and AT&T, I would be ******** bricks right now. The FCC has total control over this form of communication, and can set rules without approval of anyone. Sure, they could fight the FCC, but it would cost them a boat load, just make the FCC angry, and they would probably lose anyway.
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Not only that but Spotify and Grooveshark have just been submitted to the App Store. If Apple rejects Spotify the EU could come a knockin'. If Apple rejects Grooveshark, there may be another question added to the list by the FCC.

Look at what happened to Microsoft and the EU. The EU will be in their face for years if Apple does something they don't approve of.
 
These hardcore Apple fanboys must have big posters of Steve Jobs hanging on their bedroom walls. I dont care how much you love Apple, you are blind to see they are being to strict with the App Store.

NoExpectations said:
I hope they investigate Ford next! I want my Ford to have a Chevy Engine....those jerks at Ford are forcing us to buy their cars with their own engines!
:D
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Chevy would love it if you bought one of their engines without the car. Just goto your Chevy dealer and say you need a new engine. Once you get it, let us know how your Ford/Chevy hybrid turns out. Good luck getting it to fit.

Doctor Q said:
I've never understood the legalities behind this. When can a company take actions to avoid selling competing products, and when can't they?
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How is Google Voice competing with Apple?
 
kdarling said:
Here are the actual letters as PDFs. The one to ATT is especially interesting, since they ask if rejected apps are allowed on other phones. Oops.

Letter to Apple

Letter to AT&T

Letter to Google
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Not being 100% knowledgeable on American laws on this matter. Are Apple and AT&T compelled legally to respond to this request, or is this more of a 'courtesy call' on the part of the FCC? Given that the FCC is not directly investigating Apple and AT&T, but rather asking for their side of the story. Are there any legally accountable measures in place to ensure that Apple and AT&T do not simply tell a false tale to the FCC?
 
kdarling said:
The letters say that they (Apple, ATT, Google) can ask for secrecy if they wish, under the usual rules as outlined in 47 CFR 0.457 - 47 CFR 0.459.. These are the same rules used when getting certification, btw.

This means that they can claim secrecy for information about contract negotiations (not the contracts themselves), trade secrets (can't think of any in this case) and ummm... that's about it. Everything else can be revealed at the FCC's discretion, with five days' warning.

Basically, the FCC is telling them they have some public explaining to do.
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However, the letters also make it plainly clear "Requests for confidential
treatment must comply with the requirements of section 0.459, including the standards of
specificity mandated by section 0.459(b). Accordingly, “blanket” requests for
confidentiality of a large set of documents are unacceptable."

Ths should enable people like us - the paying customer - with the ability to gain more insight about the shenagins these two are up to than what we know nowhttp://images.macrumors.com/vb/images/smilies/confused.gif
 
Not a monopoly

To those who are likening apple to a monopoly. It just isn't the case.

If folks do not want to buy an iPhone, then they clearly have a choice, not just among phones, but among any smartphone as well, of which there are plenty and readily available. Apple is not a monopoly in the phone market, or the smartphone market.

Now, that doesn't mean that people can't call BS on apple's AppStore policies. They should, because it's been poorly managed and frustrating from the start for both developers and consumers on terms of what is allowed and what isn't. If apple keeps this up, they have to expect consumers to eventually begin voting with their dollars. Apple doesn't generally let this happen, so I expect most complaints to be resolved soon.

To those it really bothers, vote with your dollars. That's what will count the most.

Cheers,

DCBass
 
Peace said:
I know exactly what it does.

It replaces functions that the iPhone already has.
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SO let me understand this... the iphone can transcribe voice mail into text and email those to me?

And the iphone can also act as a call routing system that will simultaneously forward calls to a single number to all other numbers I choose?

Oh and the iphone also allows me to screen callers leaving voicemail or to screen all callers calling me?

WOW>.. please tell me how to activate those features the iphone already has cause I would love to start using them...

(As stated previously by another poster, you have no idea what you are talking about.)
 
TheIguana said:
Not being 100% knowledgeable on American laws on this matter. Are Apple and AT&T compelled legally to respond to this request, or is this more of a 'courtesy call' on the part of the FCC? Given that the FCC is not directly investigating Apple and AT&T, but rather asking for their side of the story. Are there any legally accountable measures in place to ensure that Apple and AT&T do not simply tell a false tale to the FCC?
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Technically they could choose to ignore the request, how-ever the FCC could easily issue a subpoena for the information in a court of law which would compel them to respond. And they (Apple et al) could then argue against the subpoena to a judge and take it all the way to the supreme court.... lol

How-ever I seriously doubt any of them want the bad press or the cost of court and legal fees to affect their share prices in an already dicey economy.

See the bottom line is, the FCC is throwing some egg on their faces and trying to get everyone to play nice... or risk having major financial impact.

Not to mention, the FCC could draft new regulations based on these request that when ratified and imposed could allow for very high penalties to be paid for non-compliance.

Thus you could conclude, in a manner of speaking, "yes, they are compelled." :D

AF
 
When I saw the title of this article I thought, "yes! Up yours, Apple/AT&T!"

Even though I have no use for Google Voice (I don't make calls), the whole "duplicates existing functionality" is pure *********, and you know it.
 
TheIguana said:
Not being 100% knowledgeable on American laws on this matter. Are Apple and AT&T compelled legally to respond to this request, or is this more of a 'courtesy call' on the part of the FCC? Given that the FCC is not directly investigating Apple and AT&T, but rather asking for their side of the story. Are there any legally accountable measures in place to ensure that Apple and AT&T do not simply tell a false tale to the FCC?
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Apple and AT&T have to respond to this. This is the US gov't getting into this. They control and mandate the the rules for communications in the US.
 
Becoming Evil!

Apple is becoming the next big EVIL now. Like my grandfather used to say "Evil begets evil". This is probably inevitable but I hope SJ could fix Apple's image before he leaves the company.
 
DCBass said:
To those who are likening apple to a monopoly. It just isn't the case.

If folks do not want to buy an iPhone, then they clearly have a choice, not just among phones, but among any smartphone as well, of which there are plenty and readily available. Apple is not a monopoly in the phone market, or the smartphone market.

Now, that doesn't mean that people can't call BS on apple's AppStore policies. They should, because it's been poorly managed and frustrating from the start for both developers and consumers on terms of what is allowed and what isn't. If apple keeps this up, they have to expect consumers to eventually begin voting with their dollars. Apple doesn't generally let this happen, so I expect most complaints to be resolved soon.

To those it really bothers, vote with your dollars. That's what will count the most.

Cheers,

DCBass
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It's funny that I've heard the Windows fanboys make the same case a few years ago.
 
joueboy said:
Apple is becoming the next big EVIL now. Like my grandfather used to say "Evil begets evil". This is probably inevitable but I hope SJ could fix Apple's image before he leaves the company.
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Will you please calm down.

The iPhone is a "PHONE" not a "COMPUTER". Maybe the FCC should investigate why I can't play Xbox 360 games on my PS3.

You people with this "evil" stuff need to go back to church.

If the FCC starts treating phones like computers, then they better do something about telecom data plans.

:apple:
 
TheIguana said:
Not being 100% knowledgeable on American laws on this matter. Are Apple and AT&T compelled legally to respond to this request, or is this more of a 'courtesy call' on the part of the FCC? Given that the FCC is not directly investigating Apple and AT&T, but rather asking for their side of the story. Are there any legally accountable measures in place to ensure that Apple and AT&T do not simply tell a false tale to the FCC?
Click to expand...

First, I am not a lawyer. But...

These letters aren't part of a hearing themselves, but do say they were brought up as an interest because of other hearings. This seems to make them voluntary, but in general it's a bad idea to anger a powerful and fairly autonomous agency like the FCC.

As for lying, agencies like the FCC have their own Administrative Judges. They are both judge and jury if there is a dispute. So if Apple told a false tale, an FCC judge can find them guilty of that and do slightly nasty things to them, like giving out monster fines.

Lastly, the hearings mentioned were prompted by the request of four Senators. Next to the U.S. President, some of the next most powerful 100 people in the world are U.S. Senators. You don't want to make them upset either.

Basically, if they think you're hiding something, it's going to go worse for you.
 
LethalWolfe said:
A lot it is based around how much control a company has in a given marketplace. If you dominate the marketplace you can't 'throw your weight around' to unfairly stifle competition (that's pretty much how MS got busted for being an illegal monopoly). The bigger Apple gets the less they'll be able to hide in their walled garden.


Lethal
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Further to your point Lethal, the issue also has to to with how much potential revenue is involved. i.e. For the past 7 years almost no one at the FCC gave a rats rectum about the unfair business practices imposed by the Telecom Giants with regards to application certification and sales in their walled gardens because the revenue involved was relatively minor.

Now that the Apple iPhone has elevated the revenue potential to a significant degree and made it quite visible to everyone in the market the FCC has a keen interest in these matters.

They want their piece and the politicians constituents do as well. ;)

AF
 
itsbarry said:
Will you please calm down.

The iPhone is a "PHONE" not a "COMPUTER". Maybe the FCC should investigate why I can't play Xbox 360 games on my PS3.

You people with this "evil" stuff need to go back to church.

If the FCC starts treating phones like computers, then they better do something about telecom data plans.

:apple:
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how young you are, but not too long ago a 600mhz processor like that found in the iphone was unheard of in a desktop PC. Not to mention the graphics, audio and networking capabilities included in the device.

The iPhone is more of a computer than many old laptops you might have lying around. Don't let the UI fool you... it's a computer with a cellular component...

AF
 
atomic.flip said:
I'm not sure how young you are, but not too long ago a 600mhz processor like that found in the iphone was unheard of in a desktop PC. Not to mention the graphics, audio and networking capabilities included in the device.

The iPhone is more of a computer than many old laptops you might have lying around. Don't let the UI fool you... it's a computer with a cellular component...

AF
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I had a cheap Dell that I bought in 2001 and got rid of in 2005. It had a 333Mhz processor with 256MB RAM. The 3GS is already more powerful in every aspect than that desktop.
 
quagmire said:
How is Google Voice different from T-Mobile wanting to use AT&T's network to send you calls? If you want Google Voice, then google can pay AT&T to piggyback off of their network or setup their own cellular service. I don't see a problem with AT&T not wanting google voice on the iPhone without compensation.......
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What? Then explain why there is a Blackberry GV app for BB's on AT&T? GV does not piggyback, when you use GV you are still using your cell minutes on AT&T. Skype on the other hand totally circumvents AT&T's network (when you are in wifi) and you can make free calls or very cheap calls. Your theory does not hold water when you look at the facts.
 
DeuceDeuce said:
But then the want to void my warranty, pricks!
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They may want to, but if they can't show that the new engine caused whatever problem you're bringing the car in for, the warranty is still valid.

Of course it's not going to be hard to claim that a non-standard engine caused the problem...but the warranty is still not automatically void.
 
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