Google Voice for iPhone
Earlier this year we launched a Google Voice HTML5 web app for iPhone users. Today we're taking the Google Voice experience on the iPhone to a whole new level with the launch of the official Google Voice for iPhone app. — With this native app …
Context & Ripple Effects
The launch closes a sixteen-month loop that began when Apple's App Store review left Google Voice off the iPhone, prompting a mid-2009 report that Google would retool the service as a Web app instead of waiting for approval (Google Voice retooled as a Web app). By December 2009 the workaround had arrived via third-party clients like VoiceCentral running through the browser (VoiceCentral brought Google Voice back to the iPhone via the browser), and Google shipped its own HTML5 web app in early 2010.
Two things changed since then: Google removed the invitation wall by opening Google Voice to everyone in June 2010 (Google Voice opened to everyone), and TechCrunch reported in late September that Apple had quietly approved the official native app (Apple approved the official Google Voice app) — weeks before today's release. The syndicated pickup framing it as 'worth the wait' reflects how unusual it was for Apple to reverse course on a flagship rejection.
First-order effects
- iPhone users get a first-party native Google Voice client, displacing both Google's own HTML5 web app and third-party browser-based stopgaps like VoiceCentral that filled the gap during the ban.
Second-order effects
- Apple's approval — after reportedly sitting on the app for weeks following its September sign-off — sets a precedent other rejected VoIP-style apps can cite against App Store review decisions, weakening the rationale for blocking dialers that bypass carrier billing.
Third-order effects
- If platform gatekeepers keep admitting call-routing apps at the OS layer, voice and SMS increasingly compete with carrier-priced telephony inside the phone itself rather than alongside it — the same dynamic Google's open-invite rollout prepared Google Voice to serve at scale.
The trend: Smartphone platform owners are shifting from blocking carrier-bypassing voice apps to approving them, pulling telephony out of carrier control and into the app layer.