back to article FCC barks at Apple for silencing Google Voice

Apple's rejection of the native iPhone client for Google Voice has attracted attention from the FCC, which has written to each of the players involved asking them to explain themselves. Google Voice is a telephony service that offers (invited users) discounted international calls and free text messaging, integrated through a …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    About time.

    It's about time that some of Apple's "monopoly" type of actions have been strongly questioned! However, as the article suggests, I bet the answers will get severely hushed up.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Scam not store

    If the iTunes store took the money, then that is where to seek refunds. Apple deserve a good slapping for totally ignoring customer rights in every aspect of their operations. About time the EU woke up and realised there are others besides Microsoft that require their attentions too.

  3. Jim Coleman
    Thumb Up

    So...

    If Microsoft is "The Beast of Redmond" then Apple should be "The Vampire of Cupertino" on account of how it bleeds money out of its users and is so secretive of its movements.

    Google could be "The Morgoth of Mountain View" on account of its great power and the evil shadow it cast over the world.

    Well that's my take on it, anyway.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Thank God!

    Its about damn time! That's the FCC I was looking for!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft- cool?!

    "It seems not long ago that Microsoft was cool: fighting the good fight against the Big Blue (IBM) to free our desktops from restriction."

    When?! Microsoft got where they are today by providing IBM with the operating system for the PC. The first version of PC-DOS/MS-DOS was a bought-in, unremarkable CP/M-workalike (some would say ripoff) that gained the prominence it did almost entirely because it was running on IBM's PC, not on technical merit.

    (The IBM PC was in turn an unremarkable machine that sold primarily because it was made by IBM.)

    Meanwhile, Gates and MS were antagonising the hacker community almost since they started, with Gates' mid-70s "Open Letter to Hobbyists".

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Finally

    Hope this is obly the beginning of the trouble for Apple and their monopoly on certain items.

    Before the fanbois\girls tear into me consider this:

    I have an iPod touch and a MacBook Pro yet Apples policies are so restrictive and prices are so outrageous that I wouldnt recommend them for anyone short of graphic artist or something. And yes before you say Apple dont have a monopoly why dont you rethink that and consider what they 'dont' have a monopoly on.

  7. Disco-Legend-Zeke

    Ma Bell, The mum from Hell

    In spite of years of deregulation, AT&T continues to operate like a monopoly, abusing that position whenever it can.

    In general, it uses its big guns to silence competition, but frequently shoots itself in the foot.

    We can safely bet that Clear ( http://clear.com ) will eat Ma Bell's shorts in the mobile Internet arena. They Are now in Las Vegas, and offer two fast connections, one for your house, and one mobile, via WIMAX, for $45 a month. They just announced ten additional cities.

    With no mobile voice cash cow ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H infrastructure to protect, they will certainly welcome voice and email users as customers.

    In my never to be written book "Bean Counters Spoil the Soup" i recount how AT&T invented local wireless broadband, invested $200 mil, launched a very successful test market. In the USA, where due to divestiture, they no longer owned last mile, it would have given them access to every home and business at a fraction of the price of laying copper or glass. However, they were forced to kill the product because the $30 a month Internet service was seen as a threat to their $1200 a month T-1 business.

  8. h 6
    Thumb Up

    finally

    The FCC would have never done this under G W Monkey Boy. Isn't this Administration grand?!

  9. B 9

    @AC

    "Hope this is obly the beginning of the trouble for Apple and their monopoly on certain items."

    - What items do they have a monopoly on? I can't see any monopoly anywhere. A majority market share does not equal a monopoly.

    I have an iPod touch and a MacBook Pro yet Apples policies are so restrictive and prices are so outrageous that I wouldnt recommend them for anyone short of graphic artist or something. And yes before you say Apple dont have a monopoly why dont you rethink that and consider what they 'dont' have a monopoly on."

    - What exactly is restrictive? You are big on generalities, but short on specifics. And stop with the pricing BS, Apple kit is usually within $100 of similarly spec'd Windows machines. It's been shown time and time again.

    Your last sentence I can't make sense out of at all. Are you asking me to consider what Apple doesn't have a monopoly on and use that as an argument that they have a monopoly on something? Soooo, they don't have a monopoly on chewing gum, but that means they have a monopoly on iPods? I honestly don't get what intricate train of logic you were trying to drive there, but it failed badly.

  10. Josh 14

    Clear, the confused broadband provider

    Despite thinking that Clear would embrace VOIP since they don't have a phone carrier affiliation, they seem to do their best to choke all VOIP clients bandwidth through filtering.

    As far as the debates that I've seen have been able to figure out, it's due to the high bandwidth requirements if all the users were well *using* VOIP. They would be required to have enough infrastructure and bandwidth to support it, rather than having enough to sell a service and hope that everyone doesn't try to use it at the speed that they sold it, simultaneously.

    That being said, I have a Clear modem, and it's nice for a no-install fee service wherever, as long as you're in the coverage area.

    If I were staying put more, cable modem all the way. (And I do have one, at home, where the clear modem never used due to lack of speed.)

  11. Mark 65
    Jobs Horns

    Refunds

    I may be wrong, but in the UK isn't the bit about refunds part of your statutory rights?

    Also, isn't it the case that the relevant legislation also states that refunds are obtainable from the point of purchase i.e. Apple.

    If it is a statutory right then it also can't be circumvented by any contract. To which point, in the UK Apple would be totally fucked.

    I could be wrong though.

  12. AndrewG
    Coat

    I'm so confused about how to take this

    Option 1 - Apple deserved a dammed good kicking for their many dubious practices and schilling for AT&T

    Option 2 - Is the FCC acting out of altruism or is it becasue theres so many ex-google execs in the US government the two are indestinguishable

    Someone help me figure who's the bad guy here!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    I smell a fanboy

    "Apple kit is usually within $100 of similarly spec'd Windows machines. It's been shown time and time again."

    That explains a lot, like why this Seagate[1] 1TB 32MB cache 7200rpm disk costs £63 and the Apple[2] 1TB 32MB cache 7200rpm disk costs £237.

    [1] http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158798

    [2] http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160393

  14. Bill Ray (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Refunds

    Statutury rights only cover goods that fail to perform, entitling the buyer to replacement goods or a refund at their discretion.

    If your farting application is making farting noises then you're not entitled to a refund no matter how drunk you were when you bought it.

    Bill.

  15. Mark 65

    @Bill Ray

    What about if there's a fault with the application then Apple have pulled it from their tat shopfront for other reasons. That way you can't get a replacement and Apple are bastards about a refund - this is more the area I was getting at.

  16. Richard 102

    Blame AT&T

    AT&T is actually rebranded SBC, and they are a terrible company. Always have been. When they took over Ameritech, service went into the tank. It was so bad that the FCC got involved, and, under deposition, blamed all the complaints on Ameritech (ie Midwest) customers who actually expected them to do what they promised on the dates they promised. Selfish Midwesterners.

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