Apple Kicking Themselves They Didn’t Buy GrandCentral (Google Voice) First?
Google bought Grand Central and rebranded it Google Voice, now Apple has rejected Google Voice for the iPhone and the FCC is looking into it. Based on the responses Apple had given the FCC, it looks like they might be afraid Google is taking over the iPhone and Google Voice is a big piece of that. So what if Apple had bought Grand Central instead? Or what if that new world-class data center Apple is building will be home to a Google Voice competitor? (Tip of the theoretical hat to Derek in our comments, who delightfully calls such a thing iVoice).
GrandCentral (not to be confused with Apple’s upcoming multicore processor handler, Grand Central Dispatch) was an innovative service that gave users a new phone number that could replace any number of other and assorted numbers (one line to ring them all), along with SMS, transcribed voice mail, conference calling, call switching, call screening, etc. It was purchased by Google in 2007 for $95 million, and relaunched in 2009 as Google Voice.
If Apple had bought it instead, they would of course now be spared the headaches surrounding the above mentioned rejection and investigation. But they’d also have a fairly compelling set of services to roll up into the iPhone…
The original iPhone 2G saw Apple neatly remove carriers from a large portion of the smartphone experience by handling the selling and activation themselves, and not allowing any so-called carrier crapware (or even physical branding) onto the iPhone.
iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 saw the removal of carrier application portals with the introduction of an Apple-controlled App Store (though that inarguably has crapware all it’s own, users don’t have to fight with it being pre-installed and/or baked in).
At the same time, the original iPod touch went from being a crippled, no external speaker, no external volume control iPhone, to a fairly good non-phone iPhone. In a couple of weeks, Apple is widely expected to ship an iPod touch with a camera and perhaps microphone as well.
That makes it a potential VoIP monster.
Of course, GrandCentral/Google Voice doesn’t use VoIP (despite Apple’s weak-tea response that they’re still investigating it). That doesn’t mean it couldn’t (as in never will).
An iPhone — or iPod touch — with “iVoice” phone, sms, voice mail, etc. behind it…? That removes the carrier further still (dumb pipe chants, if you will), and the iPod touch as a VoIP monster? Heh. It becomes the Balrog.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 am
Just got my invite yesterday and google voice is awesome. Google is the best.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Which carrier will allow this app on their smart phones and wouldn’t the FCC investigate goog for this app which may practically make the telcos irrelevant.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 am
Apple could barely get MobileMe right, I can’t imagine them atempting to run a phone service. They are a hardware company first and foremost. It doesn’t make sense for them to be investing and getting in to services, like a phone service. It’s a good theory, thought. You never know.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
@AdamC
The FCC is under no obligation to keep the telcos relevant, just to protect each telco’s monopoly on the portion of the spectrum they have purchased. If GV were to hamper a telco’s technical ability to use the airwaves, the FCC would step in. If a competitor makes a telco less desirable to customers, that is just business.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:29 am
@AdamC:
You don’t understand what Google Voice is.
[LIST] It does not do away with the telcos.
It doesn’t bypass the telcos.
It doesn’t make them irrelevant.
Some portion of the call still goes via regular telephone
GV is not VOIP (except in the loosest sense of the word)
Google is not a Carrier in any legal sense of the word [/LIST]
Read up about Google Voice here: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Correcting the typo…
“At the same time, the original iPod touch went from being a crippled, no external speaker, no external volume control iPhone, to a fairly good non-phone iPhone” should read, “…to a fairly good, but still crippled, non-phone iPhone.”
Without access to most internet streaming, my iPod touch has less internet capability than my six year old XP desktop. Purpose-built apps to get around that shortfall should be an embarrassment to Apple.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Apple is a hardware company first… But iTunes was the driving force behind th le iPod. I’m also willing to bet that OSX is the main reason most people use macs… Not their sleek hardware design, not to mention iLife.
All of that to say, when Apple puts their best foot forward, they design some of the best, cleanest, most intuitive software known to man. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part… but I think Apple could go toe to toe with Google in many of their exploits if they decide Google is ther main competition.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
@Ro:
You will find the ring-thru time to your iphone is about 10 rings. That is more than most people will wait for.
This is mostly an ATT thing. If you have it forward to a land line it is almost always instant.
This means you likely will have to use the call screening feature on your GV number if you intended to forward to you iPhone. Otherwise your party hangs up assuming you are not there.
Also, ATT screws up Caller Id, and instead of telling your iPhone the number of the calling party it tells you the number of Google’s outgoing line (usually out of Florida) that Google forwarded the call from. (This violates FCC standards for Caller Id from corporate call banks.)
It works correctly if you forward to a land line.
Amazingly, if you call back to that Florida number, Google remembers that that particular number was used to forward a call to your phone from your specific caller, and it gets it right and connects back to your original caller. (Who knows what happens if you get tons of calls this way and more than one used the same outgoing line at Google’s office).
But in any event you have no clue who was calling because the iphone never sees the true caller id on ATT.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
iCan’t understand how apple can compete with google unless it doesn’t charge for the iVoice service … ?
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
If Microsoft were still a software company, they would be all over this, promising to have it installed by default on with their new WinMo 6.5 or their Zune HD, but they’re too worried about defeating Google to actually do something useful. Imagine the ads, “Google Voice, our phone has it, iPhone doesn’t! I’ll be curious to see how quickly GV is embraced by the likes of RIM, Sony, Moto, Symbian and Palm.
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
@icebike
Not quite. The inbound 406 number you’re referring to (Montana, btw, not Florida) is actually done by design. I recommend that you google it to get a full understanding of its intent.
In a nutshell, the idea is simple. My phone is an endpoint. When I call or text another number (the other endpoint), the connection is directly coupled between the two endpoints. There is no way in this relationship to have my phone show another number (i.e. my GV number). There is also no way to have my phone, by default (and without a 3rd-party app), go through the GV system to show the other number. It only knows how to make the direct connection, manage it, and terminate it.
The 406 number solves this by serving as a telco gateway to the GV system.
For example, if someone texts my GV number and it comes through to my mobile phone, I need to reply back showing my GV number, and not that of my mobile. To do this, GV sets up a 406 number to represent the individual texting me (the endpoint). The text message comes to me with this 406 number, and not that of the actual endpoint. So when I reply back to the text, it goes back to the 406 number. At that point, GV does 3 things: figures out the GV number that my mobile phone is part of, looks at the 406 endpoint number I’m trying to reach, and then maps both my GV number and the 406 endpoint to the real phone number of the endpoint. When the endpoint receives this text reply, they’ll get my GV number tagged with it, and not that of my actual phone.
With the 406 number in place for the individual on the other end (Google guarantees that number will always exist for that endpoint), I can then call or text the endpoint and always have it show my GV number.
Hope this helps clarify things a bit.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
@Steve:
Good info re 406.
I did read somewhere about the sweetness of 406, and all the other tricks you can do with it.
But my main point is when I set up my GV number to forward to my home phone, I see the caller id of the actual caller, not the GV intermediary.
If I forward to my ATT cell phone I would see some 954 (Florida) number of Google’s outgoing call line.
I have a call log full of these 954 calls.
However, I just tested this again a minute ago, and it now seems like ATT is indeed passing the originating caller ID provided by GV rather than GV’s outgoing line.
So this issue is fixed.
Call setup still takes about 8 rings to a Cell number.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Check out problem halved iPhone app
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
@synthmeister
GV is available for BB’s right now.
August 22nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
That’s good. If it’s a great app, Apple will feel the heat sooner or later. RIM should advertise this out the wazoo.
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
GV does use Telcos – but only for the short and cheap parts. Long distance (or international I guess) calls will travel on Google or other cheaper network. Probably packet based IP somehow.
Why would Telcos like this? Takes away roaming incomes. Since GV changes and improves some things about communicating someone will get hurt (lose turover). Not only with regards to phone calls. If Apple allows GV it may disturb relations not only to ATT but to all carriers reselling their iPhone. Tough call for Apple there…
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Scathing story in Computerworld from one of the Devs of one of the banned apps:
“Apple tries to ‘pull the wool over’ FCC’s eyes, says iPhone dev”
http://tinyurl.com/lmqk9h
August 24th, 2009 at 3:22 am
@icebike
very insightful article. Did Apple just let their legal department construct the letter to the FCC? Clearly, there is enough room for a full investigation.
I’m just not sure what the FCC can even do about a situation like this or what changes are really at stake for the handset makers and mobile carriers…if the FCC should find that violations were in fact made, what are the scenarios we could see?