iPhone App Goes AWOL

Remember when we got all gushy over Google Voice, the new iPhone app that lets you conduct Google searches by asking your phone what you are searching for? Seems someone forgot to tell Apple it was coming out. Google officials assured the world that Google Voice would be available for download at the iPhone app store by last Friday, but the application is nowhere to be seen so far, and people are beginning to notice.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch claims that Google "was under the impression" that the app would be approved and ready to download by Friday, which is why the company told the press about the Friday launch date. But all users got on Friday was news that the app was still under review. In fact, according to Arrington, Apple's been as frustratingly taciturn with Google as it typically is with any developer.

"Who knows why Apple delayed the application, or why they tend to treat every application developer equally poorly," he writes. "But in this case Apple really screwed up in our opinion. ... Google faced a decision on which mobile platform to first launch the application—the iPhone or their own Android. The fact that they decided to launch first on the iPhone shows a willingness to embrace what's right for the user, and it's something that few other companies would have done. Google could have launched for the Android first and pushed sales of phones on their platform. They didn't, and Apple should have embraced them for that."

Wired's Charlie Sorrel doesn't quite see it that way; the iPhone is still king, and developers have to play by its rules, for now. "The fact is that next to nobody has the T-Mobile G1, and more than 10 million people have an iPhone," he writes. "Still, Apple needs to sort out the App Store, and quick. It's clearly a broken model, and the only person hurt is the iPhone user."