iPhone News Updated

Google Says Apple Flatly Rejected Voice App for iPhone

Google Says Apple Flatly Rejected Voice App for iPhone

When Apple sent a letter to the government in response to an inquiry about its treatment of Google Voice’s proposed iPhone application, it seemed as if Apple had opened a pinhole in the curtain of secrecy that usually surrounds its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

Now Google is arguing that the image Apple projected may have been only as real as Pixar animation.

To recap, Apple told the Federal Communications Commission that it hadn’t rejected the application, but that it was “still pondering” what to do with Google’s service. It said it was afraid Google Voice, which offers its own calling and voice mail features, might confuse users of the official Apple and AT&T call features and voice mail.

In response, Google withdrew its request that the commission keep secret certain elements of its response. On Friday, the commission published the full letter on its Web site.

In it, Google described “a series of in-person meetings, phone calls, and e-mails between July 5 and July 28.” On one phone call, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for marketing, told Alan Eustace, a Google senior vice president for engineering, that the application was rejected, Google wrote.

Google said that Apple told the company that the Google Voice app was rejected “because Apple believed the application duplicated the core functionality of the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality.”

Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, said an in an e-mail message on Friday, “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.”

[Thanks: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com]