Apple Finally Lets A Google Voice Application Into The App Store (Again)
Google Voice applications have had a pretty tumultuous history in the App Store. At first, Apple approved them, and the people rejoiced. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they were pulled, with …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Voice's iPhone saga has come full circle: after the apps were pulled from the App Store in mid-2009 at the height of the backlash over Apple's opaque approval process, developers worked around the ban — most notably with VoiceCentral's browser-based return in December 2009. On September 13, developer Sean Kovacs resubmitted his GV Mobile client, and four days later Apple let it through.
The approval matters because Google Voice duplicates core phone functionality — calling and voicemail — which was the stated friction point when Apple originally blocked it. Re-admitting a third-party client suggests Apple's review bar for carrier-adjacent apps has shifted since 2009.
First-order effects
- GV Mobile regains direct App Store distribution on iPhone, replacing the browser workaround as the primary install path for users who want Google Voice natively.
Second-order effects
- Other pulled Google Voice clients have an opening to resubmit, and Apple's reviewers now face a precedent: rejecting functionally similar apps becomes harder to justify case by case.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, App Store gatekeeping moves from blanket bans on categories that touch telephony toward case-by-case approvals — narrowing one of the sharpest developer grievances against the platform.
The trend: Apple's App Store review is drifting from categorical exclusion of telephony-duplicating apps toward individual approvals, eroding the hard line drawn in 2009.