Google Voice app returns to iTunes, iOS 5 crash bug fixed
Less than a week after it disappeared from iTunes, the Apple-friendly Google Voice app is back and declared iOS 5 friendly, per its official Twitter account. Also improved is operation when you don't have a data connection …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Voice's road to the iPhone has been long and winding: after Apple's original rejection pushed the service to a browser-based workaround via VoiceCentral in late 2009, Apple finally relented and the official app cleared review in September 2010, going live that November.
That détente held until last week, when the app was pulled from the App Store after crashing under Apple's newly released iOS 5. Its return within days — announced via Google Voice's official Twitter account, alongside better behavior without a data connection — shows the fix-and-reinstate cycle working faster than the multi-year approval fight that preceded it.
First-order effects
- iPhone users on iOS 5 regain access to Google Voice through the App Store instead of workarounds, with the crash bug fixed and offline use improved.
- Google avoids another stretch of App Store absence, keeping its voice service visible on the platform where it was once blocked outright.
Second-order effects
- Apple faces pressure to catch compatibility bugs like this before major iOS releases ship, since third-party apps breaking on launch day now generates immediate public pull-and-return drama.
- The episode reinforces for developers that announcing fixes directly through official Twitter accounts can manage the news cycle around App Store outages.
Third-order effects
- If each major iOS release keeps breaking popular third-party apps at launch, app-store stability becomes part of the platform-competition calculus between Apple and rivals courting the same developers.
- Google Voice's path from rejected app to quickly-repaired resident marks how far the two companies' relationship has normalized since the 2009 standoff.
The trend: Mobile platforms are shifting from gatekeeping disputes over whether apps like Google Voice may exist to operational questions of shipping them stable across major OS upgrades.