Google says Apple did reject Voice app

Google told the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that Apple did indeed reject the Google Voice application from the iPhone store, despite contrary statements from Apple.

Both Google and Apple have responded to questions posed by the FCC about the status of the Google Voice application. Apple said that it was still considering the application.

But Google, whose full comments only surfaced on the FCC Web site on Friday, said that Apple informed it that the Google Voice application was rejected because “Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality,” Google wrote in the letter.

Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment about Google's filing, but in a statement made to The Wall Street Journal it insisted that it has not rejected Google Voice and that it continues to discuss it with Google.

Apple serves as gatekeeper for applications in its iPhone App Store. It has offered a few guidelines about what is not allowed, but has come under fire for rejecting some applications apparently only because they compete with services from either Apple or AT&T.

Google contends in the filing that Apple delivered the news about the rejection of the Google Voice application verbally, during a phone call between Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of product marketing, and Alan Eustace, Google's senior vice president of engineering and research.