Is there a thawing of the cold war between Apple and Google?
Even though Apple spent the last year blocking Google Voice apps on the App Store, the company’s new review guidelines are creating an opening for its most formidable competitor in the mobile space.
And according to TechCrunch, Google’s own app for its phone service has already cleared any Apple hurdles and is on its way to the iTunes App Store. Exactly when isn’t clear, but it does seem to be only a matter of time.
Google Voice is a phone service that provides users with a dedicated phone number (which you can specify) and voice mail service, and forwards texts and calls that come in to the number to any phone, or even multiple phones. It’s free and it’s cool.
Apple originally blocked Google Voice apps on claims that it duplicated functionality already on the iPhone, but that seemed a little fishy to everyone, including the FCC. If duplicating functionality was an issue in the app store, Apple would need to bounce about 249,900 of the roughly 250,000 available iPhone apps.
Since the beginning of September, Apple has cleared through a handful of Google Voice apps, but one assumes an app designed by Google will have additional functionality, and will likely be free. One notable feature an official app will include likely will be Push notifications – third-party Google Voice app makers have to provide their own servers to generate these notifications, since they can’t piggyback on Google’s API to do so.
While they wait for Apple and Google to officially announce a new app, Google Voice users can check out GV Mobile +, a Google Voice app that costs $2.99 but shows off what the service might be capable of when it eventually comes officially to the iPhone.
