Google Voice Alternative Line2 Is Now Live On The App Store
The Apple/Google Voice fiasco just got more interesting. Toktumi, a startup that lets small businesses build office-caliber phone systems with their mobile phones and computers, just had its application Line2 approved by Apple …
Context & Ripple Effects
Through the summer of 2009, Apple kept Google Voice applications out of the App Store — the 'fiasco' this launch lands inside — leaving iPhone users with no sanctioned way to get call handling and multi-line features beyond what Apple and AT&T allowed.
Toktumi's Line2 changes the shape of that standoff: rather than shipping a consumer call-router like the blocked Google Voice clients, it positions itself as a small-business phone system built on mobile phones and computers, and Apple approved it. The distinction matters because it suggests where the line sits in Apple's review calculus — and gives every rejected developer a new template.
First-order effects
- Toktumi's Line2 now reaches iPhone users directly through the App Store, letting small businesses assemble an office-caliber phone system from mobile devices and computers instead of dedicated desk equipment.
- With Google Voice clients still shut out, Line2 becomes the sanctioned option in exactly the feature territory Apple has been refusing — handing a startup the demand Apple's own rejections created.
Second-order effects
- Developers whose call-handling apps were rejected now have Line2's approval as a proof of path: package telephony as a business system rather than a consumer call router, and Apple may let it through.
- Carrier voice revenue at the small-business end faces software substitution — multi-line capability moving out of installed hardware and into an app means the pricing power shifts toward whoever owns the storefront.
Third-order effects
- If Apple continues approving business-framed telephony apps while blocking direct equivalents, its review process becomes the de facto regulator of which voice features exist on the iPhone — gatekeeping power migrating from carriers to the platform owner.
- Small-business telephony drifts from PBX hardware vendors toward app-store-distributed services, making platform review policy, not telecom regulation, the binding constraint on competition in voice.
The trend: Smartphone app stores are absorbing small-business telephony, with platform review decisions rather than carriers deciding which voice services reach users.