Comments | feardiagh: Letter to Apple - iPhone and Google Voice

feardiagh

Letter to Apple - iPhone and Google Voice

Jul 28, 2009 10:06

I sent this to Apple today. I have been getting more frustrated with the iPhone application banning as time has gone on. Today I found out they had banned the Google Voice app, which I had been waiting for excitedly. This is what I sent ( Read more... )

Comments 7

Not to be crass... bitobear July 28 2009, 18:57:53 UTC

Can I point and laugh and do the "I told you so" dance with respect to me telling you not to trust Apple's DRM policy? Or is it too soon?

Sorry (well not really _sorry_ 8-) but schadenfreude makes certain demands of us all so it _had_ to be said.

Not that most other phones in this country are any better.

Signed, your friendly linux weasel who refuses iTunes, iPod, *Mac*, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Windows*, Blu-Ray, MS-Word, MS-*, Trusted Computing, *.doc files, OS-Named-For-Feline, Kindle, Spore, "buying" media that is really a rental because the media server may go away, etc...

Yes those exclusions can make it harder to find good media, but I refuse to pay for something that the manufacturer can then steal back away from me without warning or recompense, so its worth the effort to avoid the theft. I get "cant buy that" remorse, but I don't get flat out buyers remorse for money thrown away.

Re: Not to be crass... feardiagh July 28 2009, 19:04:27 UTC

Yeah. It has been coming for a while.

And I'm not too much more impressed with the Google phone stuff.

meh...

Re: Not to be crass... bitobear July 28 2009, 22:32:45 UTC

Having just looked at the Google Voice service, I can't see it as anything that every other phone company doesn't already offer. Vonage virtual phone numbers ($9 a month, I didn't check Google pricing) or any number of small providers.

I've been looking at these various services anyway for work reasons. There are free and paid options and some are tied to other services (vonage gives you the virtual numbers for $9 but only if you have a base service already). Of course the base service will simul-ring multiple phones to begin with.

Having worked with telecom for years all this stuff is stuff we should have had like 20 years ago.

Our business models and all the "secrecy" and patent trolling etc just piss me off because I know most of these features have been languishing for decades. Hell, our technology is (again) today where science was in the days of alchemy; locked behind closed doors for fear of IP "theft".

Bunch of dumbasses in charge of everything if you ask me...

0.5 * [smiley face]

Re: Not to be crass... feardiagh July 28 2009, 22:37:36 UTC

I wasn't disparaging Google Voice. It is pretty rad. I've been using it in testing mode for a week now to try it out. And it is free.

I'm not sure about the android system or the phones it runs on or the carriers they are on.

I have a major problem with most of the cell phone providers and the services and prices they charge. Land line providers are not much better, and don't get me started on "business class" telco. That is the crap I have to work with every day.

But yeah... ideas are meant to be shared. If you think of something that you think your customers would like, do it. If you do it better than everyone else they will pay you for it. Being able to lock down the right to do it is dumb and anti-competitive. Meh... back to work.

marc17 July 28 2009, 19:37:24 UTC

Naw, they're probably not harming themselves. The amount of people who might not buy an iPhone because of banned apps who are not capable of jailbreaking it if they want is probably negligible. It does what it is supposed to do and does it well, that's all most iPhone buyers care about.

feardiagh July 28 2009, 20:15:42 UTC

Yeah... I know... but I still wanted to voice my opinion. They have been known to be swayed before.

and dont you bitobear July 28 2009, 22:24:18 UTC

think that's really sad?

Evil but friendly (Apple) is just a hair worse than evil but stupid (MS).