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From: Alvin Auerbach <alvin.auerb...@verizon.net>
Date: August 23, 2009 8:07:28 AM EDT
To: Computer Guys Discussion List <COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
Subject: Apple Answers the FCC’s Questions
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/?sr=hotnews.rss
Apple Answers 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.
Apple’s goal is to provide our customers with the best possible user
experience. We have been able to do this by designing the hardware
and software in our products to work together seamlessly. The iPhone
is a great example of this. It has established a new standard for
what a mobile device can be—an integrated device with a phone, a
full web browser, HTML email, an iPod, and more, all delivered with
Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface.
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.
The App Store provides a frictionless distribution network that
levels the playing field for individual and large developers of
mobile applications. We provide every developer with the same
software that we use to create our own iPhone applications. The App
Store offers an innovative business model that allows developers to
set their own price and keep more (far more in most cases) of the
revenue than traditional business models. In little more than a
year, we have raised the bar for consumers’ rich mobile experience
beyond what we or anyone else ever imagined in both scale and
quality. Apple’s innovation has also fostered competition as other
companies (e.g., Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, Palm and Verizon) seek to
develop their own mobile platforms and launch their own application
stores.
Apple works with network providers around the world so that iPhone
users have access to a cellular network. In the United States, we
struck a groundbreaking deal with AT&T in 2006 that gives Apple the
freedom to decide which software to make available for the iPhone.
This was an industry first.
We created an approval process that reviews every application
submitted to Apple for the App Store in order to protect consumer
privacy, safeguard children from inappropriate content, and avoid
applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. Some
types of content such as pornography are rejected outright from the
App Store, while others such as graphic combat scenes in action
games may be approved but with an appropriate age rating. Most
rejections are based on bugs found in the applications. When there
is an issue, we try to provide the developer with helpful feedback
so they can modify the application in order for us to approve it.
95% of applications are approved within 14 days of their submission.
We’re covering new ground and doing things that had never been done
before. Many of the issues we face are difficult and new, and while
we may make occasional mistakes, we try to learn from them and
continually improve.
In response to your specific questions, we would like to offer the
following:
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. For example, on an iPhone, the
“Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen
launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to
Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. The
Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by
routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that
stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the
iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS
text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the
iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s
entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we
have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will
only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new
issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.
The following applications also fall into this category.
Name: GVDialer / GVDialer Lite
Developer: MobileMax
i...@mobile-mx.com
Name: VoiceCentral
Developer: Riverturn, Inc.
4819 Emperor Blvd., Suite 400
Durham, NC 27703
Name: GV Mobile / GV Mobile Free
Developer: Sean Kovacs
s...@seankovacs.com
We are continuing to study the Google Voice application and its
potential impact on the iPhone user experience. Google is of course
free to provide Google Voice on the iPhone as a web application
through Apple’s Safari browser, just as they do for desktop PCs, or
to provide its “Google-branded” user experience on other phones,
including Android-based phones, and let consumers make their choices.
<SNIP> Truncated because of line limit.
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