Apple Denies It Rejected Google Application for iPhone

Apple told the Federal Communications Commission on Friday that it did not reject an iPhone application submitted by Google and that it was still studying it, in part because of privacy concerns. Google Voice offers users free domestic telephone calls, deeply discounted international calls and SMS messages. Apple told the FCC that Google Voice duplicated the functions of the iPhone, which uses the AT&T network in the United States, and might confuse users. The application "appears to alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voice mail," the company wrote. Apple also raised concerns that Google Voice copied all of the information about a user's contacts onto Google's servers. Apple said that it had not discussed the Google Voice application with AT&T and that in most cases its contract with the wireless carrier gave it the sole authority to decide whether to accept applications. AT&T filed its own letter, asserting that it was not consulted by Apple on the Google voice application. It defended the restriction on voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, service as important to preserving the revenue it needed to offset the subsidized price of the iPhone. Apple and AT&T, it said, "required assurances that the revenues from the AT&T voice plans available to iPhone customers would not be reduced by enabling VoIP calling functionality on the iPhone." In Google's letter to the commission, it said it did not screen applications for its Android cellphone operating system, but that it did reject apps that contained pornography or other objectionable material.