APPLE RESPONDS TO THE FCC’S QUESTIONS

“Today Apple filed with the FCC the following answers to their questions.

We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s inquiry dated July 31, 2009, requesting information regarding Apple’s App Store and its application approval process. In order to give the Bureau some context for our responses, we begin with some background information about the iPhone and the App Store.”

Alright guys, you aren’t pleased, so way to start it off on a dishonest note. We’ll skip the part about the iPhone and the App Store since everyone already knows what it is. Well, there is one part that’s kind of over the top:

“…Apple then introduced something altogether new—the App Store—to give consumers additional functionality and benefits from the iPhone’s revolutionary technology. The App Store has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, just over a year since opening, the App Store offers over 65,000 iPhone applications, and customers have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications.”

To clarify, the App Store is a great way for Apple to make a disgustingly large amount of money off of software they didn’t develop. It’s not cheap to be an Apple iPhone developer, though the profits can be quite large if your app takes off.

“Question 1. Why did Apple reject the Google Voice application for iPhone and remove related third-party applications from its App Store? In addition to Google Voice, which related third-party applications were removed or have been rejected? Please provide the specific name of each application and the contact information for the developer.

Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it. The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it 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 voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone.”

Oh no, it hasn’t been rejected, it will “just never be approved.” Honestly, the app is pretty simple, and Apple knows everything about it. They don’t continue to study it, they just want to make AT&T happy. With the Google voice app, it makes it more difficult for AT&T to charge absurdly large amounts for very small transfers of data. I’m pretty sure watching one Youtube video on the iPhone will transfer much more data over the network than any amount of text communication one person would ever do over the period of a month. This alone is enough to prove that the text messages are a rip off. They make a lot of money, and Apple can’t allow AT&T to suffer the kind of loss that Google Voice might cause with its free SMS messages.

“Question 2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications? If the latter, please describe the communications between Apple and AT&T in connection with the decision to reject Google Voice. Are there any contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T that affected Apple’s decision in this matter?

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application. No contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T have been a factor in Apple’s decision-making process in this matter.”

I guess I can only speculate as to whether AT&T talked with Apple about the app. My best guess is that AT&T brought it to Apple’s attention and told them to take it off the store. Apple probably took a calculated risk in lying to the FCC about talking to AT&T because they don’t see this turning into something big. I don’t think phone records will ever be subpoenaed by any judge, nor will this issue ever go to court unless the developer sues apple. Google doesn’t even have anything directly to do with this matter, so we can forget about them getting involved.

“Question 3. Does AT&T have any role in the approval of iPhone applications generally (or in certain cases)? If so, under what circumstances, and what role does it play? What roles are specified in the contractual provisions between Apple and AT&T (or any non-contractual understandings) regarding the consideration of particular iPhone applications?

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T’s permission. Apple honors this obligation, in addition to respecting AT&T’s customer Terms of Service, which, for example, prohibit an AT&T customer from using AT&T’s cellular service to redirect a TV signal to an iPhone. From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration.”

Okay… well uhh none of the Google Voice apps initiate a VOIP session on the endpoint of the phone. It’s just a regular call… they call you, and that time is billable. Clearly the phone call part isn’t the problem here.

Also worth noting: Apple does not care whether or not some third party  makes a modification to their iPhone OS as long as it doesn’t adversely affect sales. If they lose the contract with AT&T (which is highly unlikely) or they have to pay fines as a result of a contract breach then it might be a problem. Obviously they wouldn’t lose the contract over the phone calls. If anything, the Google Voice users would have to pay more because in certain cases they’d be giving up free mobile to mobile minutes! Obviously this is all about the SMS messages! What else could it possibly be? AT&T wants to charge you a lot of money for extremely small transfers of data, and Google may take it away!!!

“Question 5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers? If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?”

The response on this one is completely irrelevant. The FCC is not stupid. They are beurocratic, yes, but not stupid. Whom ever formulated these questions did so in a general, “it’s just a formality” kind of way. It’s rather insulting that the FCC thinks I’ll think they actually care what happens here, because I don’t think they do.

At any rate, you can read the rest of the article here: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/. I can’t go on any farther.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T PAY FOR TEXTS

The whole idea that text messages aren’t a free part of the data package is insulting to the consumer. We know there isn’t anything special about text messages… they are encoded in the Internet protocol and routed just like any other series of data packets, and if they aren’t they should be.

To give you an idea of how much data is transfered, a normal english ASCII character takes up 8 bits (8 zero’s and ones), commonly called an octet or a byte. An SMS message is a maximum of 70 characters for a grand total of  70*8 bits = 560 zero’s and ones for the longest possible text message. The text message would be longer if it included foreign or other special characters that require more than one octet. This is excluding overhead, but its fair to exclude overhead as long as we exclude it on what we compare the text message to. So let’s compare it to a YouTube video.

I have a method of downloading Youtube videos which is the subject of another post, but just for comparison one of my videos in FLV (flash video format) which is 4 minutes long is 6MB. 6MB is equal to 6291456 bytes which would be 11234 text messages at the 560 bytes we figured.

Let’s give AT&T some leeway here, lets say every text message is encoded in UTF-8 and takes a full four octets. We’ll pretend that it’s uncompressed and there is a 25% overhead. This is a LOT more than what a text message would ever be, but lets just see how it would compare. This would be 5×560 bytes which equals 2800 bytes per message (maximum, and everyone knows people rarely use the full 70 characters). That same 6MB Youtube video would allow for 2246 text messages. That would be 74 messages a day for 30 days to equal one four minute long Youtube video.

Now how do you feel? Like you’re getting raped? You should.

I pay $5 for 200 text messages, or 1600 bytes and $30 for the unlimited data plan for the iPhone, which is rumored to actually have a 5GB cap even though it’s “unlimited.”