Scythe Matters

I’ve had the iPhone 3G for a year now, and I’ve been really happy with it. My wife and I switched from Sprint to AT&T to get it (even paid a hefty early-termination fee) because Sprint was sucktastic and we wanted the new hotness. And all was good in the land of Oz, until…

Apple and AT&T started crippling the iPhone with their “amazing” App Store. Which really is amazing, but could be so much better if they’d actually open it up and let in all the cool stuff. You can find tons of info on how the App Store approval process makes no sense with a simple Google search, but just a few examples are blocking the video streaming app Qik, crippling the Sling Player app (wifi only), and recently forcing Google to make their Latitude service into a web app instead of native application.

And now, for me at least, the last straw came yesterday when Sean Kovacs, the developer of the GV Mobile app that lets you connect to and use your Google Voice account, announced that Apple was pulling his app from the App Store (along with the other GV apps). After that news broke, more info leaked out about how Google had even submitted their own GV app some six weeks ago which Apple would not allow into the App Store. Meanwhile, there are native Google apps for Google Voice available on both Blackberry and Android phones (as well as other iPhone-unavailable apps, like Qik), and there remain apps in the App Store that do the same kinds of things GV Mobile did.

If you don’t yet know about Google Voice, I suggest you look into it. It’s still an invite-only service, but Google is making a strong effort to open it up to many users, and for a lot of reasons it looks great. The big ones though are that it gives you a new, “central” phone number that you can use to channel all of your phone calls through, along with the ability to have your voicemails transcribed to text and emailed to you, and free sms messages. All big things for cell phone users and people juggling several numbers (office, home landline, cell, perhaps a business cell, etc).

However, there are some limitations to using the service, the biggest of which is that while you may have a shiny new GV number for people to call you, when you call them they still see your old phone number. An iPhone (or Blackberry or Android or Windows Mobile) app can fix this, which is exactly what GV Mobile and others were doing. And now, inexplicably, that’s over and gone.

Personally, I’m sick of it. I laid out a lot of cash in order to get a device that was supposed to free me from the constraints of typical cell phones. And while it started out on the right path, things took a wrong turn somewhere and now I’m more aware of what I can’t do with it than what I can. If somebody asked me today whether they should switch to AT&T to get an iPhone, my answer would be an emphatic NO. And if you’re already on AT&T? Well, it would be a big MAYBE, depending on what you want it for. Personally, I want streaming video and Google Voice on my phone, and it’s looking like I’m going to have to jump ship again to get it.

If you’re in the same boat as me, you have a few options. You could jailbreak your phone to get some of these restricted apps (Gizmodo has a great step-by-step guide) – Kovacs has released GV Mobile for jailbroken phones. Or you could sell your iPhone to pay for the early termination fees and pick up an Android or Blackberry handset (or maybe the Palm Pre) from Verizon or Sprint. I’d also suggest leaving Apple some feedback, in the hopes that they get the message and repent. Here’s what I submitted to Apple through their iPhone feedback form:

The news today that Apple is not only pulling all of the Google Voice apps from the App Store, but has also already blocked the addition of Google’s exclusive GV app, has infuriated me to the point of considering my options for ditching the iPhone and AT&T. There’s been plenty of examples of the shoddy state of the App Store and the decisions about what gets in or not, and this is for me just the last straw.
I switched from Sprint to AT&T to get the iPhone 3G last year, and I’ve been extremely happy overall with both the phone and the carrier. But the main reason I love the iPhone, and why I tell others to get one, is because of the App Store and how it opens up the platform to be so much more than just a regular cell phone. I’m sorry, AT&T, if Google Voice scares you, but you’re already doing enough to discourage me as a customer with exorbitant sms fees and blocking or crippling other apps like Qik, Sling player, and Google Latitude. But keeping these apps away from me is not doing anything to persuade me to stick with you. I’m not going to stop paying you over $100/mo for cell phone service just because I now have a Google Voice app. It just means I’ll be using a new number, and not texting through your service (which I avoid like the plague anyhow). And Apple: bowing to the pressure of AT&T, whatever the reasons, makes you just as culpable.
If it means switching to Verizon or Sprint and buying an AndroidOS phone or a Blackberry so that I can get apps like Qik and Google Voice for my phone, so be it. I’m sick of this shit, and unless you all do an about face really quick then I’m not going to deal with it anymore.

I don’t have any delusions about my (in)significance to Apple and AT&T, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit idly by and accept their baloney, and neither do you. If there’s one thing these companies will listen to, it’s our dollars, and as long as they’re blocking Google Voice apps I don’t want to give them any more of mine.

Update: A great article from TechCrunch (with some amazing comments) on why Apple may have pulled Google Voice
Update: And a great article from LifeHacker exploring why this is such a big issue, and ultimately not just for iPhone owners.