What took them so long?
I can't imagine Schmidt was very happy when Apple turned down the google voice application, but at the same time I don't think he was surprised.
Also, this could be the prelude to Google suing Apple over this.
"And destroyed most of his neighborhood."
I definitely have never nuked a poor camel, though (per JacobAldridge's reply), though I'll see what I can do about correcting that oversight. Also perhaps I'll drop a Library of Congress on an unsuspecting camel.
I suspect even if Google knew that the application would be rejected that they still would have developed it to start a PR coup to knock the iPhone off of its pedestal. I don't think Google really cares all that much about Google Voice in isolation -- it's of limited strategic value by itself. But if you see it as part of their overall mobile strategy of commoditizing the smart phone market (which Google Voice also helps), and if you look at how important it is for Apple that that not happen, I think the conflict of interest has more teeth.
Reading HN today has paid off I see. That's a brilliant insight.
Most of the things I do are arranged by email/IM. We agree to go to someone's house at a particular time, and then we do so. I'd only call if I managed to get lost.
(The penetration numbers I've heard for gmail mean that college students do not use technology like anyone else. Then again, they're a pretty sweet marketing demographic...)
Communications methods that have a cost associated with them are used for more important stuff than those that are free.
When the telegraph was introduced it certainly wasn't wasted on trivialities, every word cost money.
The phone still costs money, even if the amount per word is so low that in practice it is also used for many trivial communications.
The cost of email and IM is so low that most of it is trivial, spam exists for that one reason only. If an email would cost you 25 cts then spam would be non-existent.
So the graph of who calls who probably has significant value, possibly more than who mails who or who IMs who.
imho, the us market will lead the way as a test bed for services of this nature to be rolled out globally.
Further, I would wager my parents' generation do much of this planning via word of mouth at church. This is highly anecdotal though.
(In any case, I think you overstate the set of people without computers but with cell phones from which reasonable social graphs can be generated. Some places cells are rare enough they are shared by a group of people...)
Also I was serious.
I never thought of the value that is inherent in knowing who calls who. That's the sort of gem that comes by here every now and then.
as to unique id's...
As for all the other GV apps, I'm pretty sure they were only removed because AT&T became aware of them as a side effect of the official app being published.
Either that's the truth or shredders are running, the FCC has asked that question explicitly and that was AT&Ts answer: "AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store"
Which pretty much leaves Apple to talk their way out of this on their own. Nice to have partners.
Blackberry and Androind users can still user GV apps, and AT&T has denied any involvement in this fiasco, leads me to believe it was all Apple's doing.