Apple, AT&T, and the Rush to Judgment
Posted on August 22, 2009 |
Back in July, when Apple rejected the iPhone Google Voice from the iTunes App Store, the tech world instantly came to the conclusion that AT&T, iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier, made them do it.
In The New York Times, David Pogue blamed AT&T-Apple collusion for the "heavy-handed, Soviet information-control style."
On TechCrunch, Jason Kincaid wrote: "Of course, it’s not hard to guess who’s behind the restriction: our old friend AT&T." Perhaps strangest of all was a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Andy Kessler that charged: "How could AT&T not object? AT&T clings to the old business of charging for voice calls in minutes." The article did not help its case by mischaracterizing how Google Voice works (it does not divert voice calls to the Internet) and by saying that Verizon Wireless, rather than Sprint, is the exclusive carrier for the Palm Pre.
What everyone believed, however, is not what happened. On Aug. 21, the FCC released responses from Apple, AT&T, and Google to its inquiry about the incident. Apple and AT&T agreed that the decisions regarding Google Voice were Apple's alone. Google response on this point was redacted from the public version at Google's insistence.
