Apple

This past week has been rather quiet but not in the way I'd hoped. Normally when I'm on the road as I was this week I'd get a series of photos and videos of the various things going on at home. While FaceTime is great and we had some great calls the videos and photos weren't coming.

As it turns out this isn't some issue with a lack of good intentions. In fact my wife was certain she'd sent them. Indeed there on her iPhone was an outbox full of messages to family members waiting for the last week to be sent.

It also turns out that she's far from alone in having these issues. And before Apple feels the need to post videos of other phones failing in the same way, yes there are other phones having similar problems that aren't running iOS4 or made by Apple.

At the same time my phone is having no issues sending photos and videos from the photo gallery. So I started to compare the differences between the two phones.

The FCC's call for information on why the Google Voice iPhone app was withdrawn is going to uncover some interesting details. First up AT&T responded with a carefully crafted statement that amounts to "we don't do that". What wasn't said, however, is what control AT&T contractually holds over Apple's process.

Let's back up a minute and look at who stands to gain from this. If the iPhone supports a VoIP application who stands to lose? AT&T. Apple will still sell iPhones and iPods to these customers with their VoIP apps. In fact in many cases Apple may well sell Apps to them as well. Even if the particular app is free trends show iPhone users will buy plenty of other applications to make up for it. So Apple gains nothing and in fact loses quite a bit by having these apps rejected. AT&T on the other hand doesn't get the same black-eye and gets to think it's protecting it's dwindling cellular voice market.