iPhone developer revolt brewing, what can Palm learn?
Charles Wolf, of Needham & Co., recently described the iPhone App Store as a “wasteland of mediocre applications” and that it was taking “its place alongside YouTube, where poor taste is the defining metric.” And now, following Apple’s killing of various Google Voice applications for ‘duplicating features’ of the iPhone (possibly at AT&T’s bidding), developers are beginning to question the logic of developing applications for the iPhone platform. Even Michael Arrington, noted lover of all things Apple, and editor of TechCrunch, is dumping his iPhone (and would have picked up a Pre if there was a webOS Google Voice app, somebody tell that guy about Homebrew!).
Mr. Rubinstein, I sincerely hope you’re watching what’s going on here as Palm moves towards finalizing its own App Catalog. While Apple may have led the way into a place we didn’t know we needed to go (the land of the application store), they’ve since gotten lost and wandered into an ever-darkening corner. Palm, we’ve got some helpful pointers, some of which you're doing, some we want to make sure you do.
Want Google Voice on the Pre?
If there’s any one technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate with our phones at work and home and in our pockets, it’s Google Voice. Started as GrandCentral and later acquired by Google, Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that rings through to your cell phone, work phone, home phone, and any other phones you specify. You can even filter how your phones ring by contacts (your mother only rings on the home phone, your wife on all phones, and your mother-in-law goes straight to voicemail), which are shared with your Google Contacts and Gmail contacts. Google recently purchased a large block of phone numbers nationwide and sent out invites to those who had requested access to the closed beta program.
Beyond that, Google Voice also offers online voicemail recording and forwarding, voicemail transcripts, call screening, personalized-by-contact greetings, and more.
So what of the Pre? Right now if you want to use your Pre with Google Voice, you have to call the Google Voice number, select the contact you want to call, and the server will do the rest. Calls to your Google Voice number will go to your phone, but if you call out from an on-phone contact it will give your cell number as the caller ID instead of your Google Voice number. This is frustrating, but there can be a better solution - an app to handle those common phone functions and present your number as your Google Voice number properly.
Blackberry and Android owners can get apps. iPhone users, well, they've just been blocked out of the service thanks to Apple's insanely terrible app policies (Update: sister site TiPb chimes in on the debacle: Apple has removed all Google Voice apps from the iPhone). Seems like a good opportunity for Palm, doesn't it? Do you want such an application for webOS? Of course you do. Mosey on over to Google Voice’s suggest a feature page, scroll down to the mobile applications section, and check off Palm Application. Hopefully Google will make it and Palm will accept it and you, friend, will use it.
Of course, if you're using Google Voice now, might we recommend a visit to our homebrew pre apps forum? If you mosey on over there, you'll find that flpalm has already created a dialer app for the Pre you can install today - Gdial. There's also dkGoogleVoice from d0lph1nK1ng.
Thanks to cujoe for the tip!
