Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/google-releases-a-nuke-apple-wont-win-this-fight/

by vaksel • 17 years ago

72 56 17 years ago

dfranke5• 17 years ago

We’re offering a free TechCrunch tshirt to any Google employee that forwards that screenshot to us. No questions asked.

Anyone left on HN who still wants to stand up for Arrington's reputation as a journalist?

logic• 17 years ago

I expected the TechCrunch readership to not get a little jab of humor, but here too?

dfranke5• 17 years ago

It isn't funny. Arrington seems to think it is, but apparently all he's laughing at is his own lack of ethics rather than at any intended jest:

i mean, sure, we’d take the docs and deliver the tshirt. but we do have one or two other ways of getting information.

mullr• 17 years ago

I find that a little funny. By wearing the free t-shirt, wouldn't everybody know what it's you that leaked said screenshot? Unless everybody at google regularly wears techcrunch clothing, which probably isn't likely. He should probably offer something which doesn't implicitly identify his source.

idm2• 17 years ago

I hope the shirt says, "I leaked evidence in my employer's multi-million-dollar lawsuit and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

ksvs• 17 years ago

There are few reporters who wouldn't accept leaked documents. Some of the most famous news stories were based on leaks.

dfranke5• 17 years ago

There are hopefully considerably fewer offering explicit quid pro quos for said documents.

skolor2• 17 years ago

More than that, I was wondering: Who would do that for a T-Shirt? Its just disgusting to me (and indicative of why I don't read Tech Crunch) that they are so full of themselves that they feel even a T-Shirt from them holds significant value.

erlanger• 17 years ago

I don't see a problem with this.

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

The only problem I see is it will be trivial to find the culprit, just look for the Googler wearing a TC shirt.

idm2• 17 years ago

I'm in the "t-shirt was a joke" camp, but this does cause me to wonder: is this alleged screenshot also a joke?

I mean, in the context of the t-shirt thing, just how credible can Arrington's screenshot claim be, anyway?

bmelton• 17 years ago

What strikes me as worrisome is that, at least by the tone of the article, there is no possible doubt in Arrington's mind that the screenshot exists, and that it is EXACTLY what was claimed to him, and he hasn't even seen it.

I'm sure it's a somewhat thin argument, but I personally would think they'd start reserving their over-committal in the wake of the Facebook-picture-fax thing. I mean, they bought that hook, line and sinker, and that was a hoax they at least SAW.

pjvandehaar• 17 years ago

This is disproved by the fact that at least 10 perfectly photoshopped screenshots had to have been submitted in the first hour, and have not been posted.

jkincaid2• 17 years ago

It's a joke. Up to you whether you think it's funny or not, but as grounds to question his credibility? Lighten up.

zaidf• 17 years ago

I once passed on a story to TC that had one upvote on HN at the time. It went on to become a huge sensation online and in print worldwide. I won't disclose it but basically the company threatened to sue all involved in spreading it. Afraid, I wrote to Arrington and he assured me he'd rather goto jail than out a source.

Of course I never seriously thought the company had a case(especially against me). I just took a public link and fwded it to someone who made it big. Very different from leaking.

Nwallins• 17 years ago

> I once passed on a story to TC that had one upvote on HN

The meaning of this is completely changed if you parse it like:

I once passed on a story...

josefresco• 17 years ago

Anyone HN left with a sense of humor? dranke apparently lost his.

jongraehl• 17 years ago

Screenshots are evidence because you'd really have to be lame to spend the effort on a perfect forgery?

Is it that they do feel shame and won't falsely claim forgery on top of what they're already caught at?

gojomo2• 17 years ago

Anyone have a copy of any bona-fide Apple App Store rejection notice?

It's possible both sides are playing semantic games. A "we can't include this app at this time without tweaks" could be seen as a 'rejection' or merely a 'request for info/changes' depending on your perspective. I wouldn't put it past Apple to have carefully worded all 'rejections' and 'approvals' so that there is always wiggle room in both directions.

drewcrawford2• 17 years ago

False. The iTunes Connect interface displays a red stoplight and a "Rejected" indication when an app has been rejected. Can't be clearer than that. Now whether or not they showed this image to Google I haven't the foggiest idea, but that's the way it's always happened to me. Behold: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/59605/imgboards/Screen%20shot%202...

As for e-mail rejection notices, they can be a little weasley. Here's the operative sentence in a rejection I got from Apple:

> We've reviewed [app name] and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because [reason].

gojomo2• 17 years ago

Thanks for the details!

Though, I can see Apple's wiggle-room still. The image talks about rejecting a 'binary'. The boilerplate text, rejecting a 'version'.

So picturing myself seated on Apple's (self-interested, self-serving) mental furniture, they may interpret things as: "We've rejected a version, and rejected a binary, but the app itself is still (and perpetually!) eligible for further consideration."

samps• 17 years ago

This is just a big, semantic muddle. Gruber put it best:

Google doesn’t see the difference between "not accepted" and "rejected" that Apple claims to see. (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/09/18/google-unredacts)

Obviously, there's some kind of communication/PR/spin gap between Apple and Google. The distinction is so tiny and cosmetic that it's not worth getting all worked up over: Apple is weaseling around its decision, and it's pretty slimy, but it's going a little far to shout "you lie." (A "nuke"? Seriously?)

Personally, I wish the hotheaded folks at the 'Crunch would move on to the larger questions: what's the real reason the app was "not accepted"? Is the decision anticompetitive? What can Google (and its customers) do about it?

IsaacL• 17 years ago

Agreed, I'm trying to work out what the story actually is here.

Apple said that they hadn't rejected Voice, just they hadn't accepted it yet because of concerns it competed with the iPhone's core functionality.

The truth is they had rejected Voice, for the above reasons. Is that it?

GHFigs4• 17 years ago

The documents released yesterday indicate that Google was informed of the rejection of the current Google Voice application during a phone call with Phil Schiller on July 7th. Plenty of room for ambiguity in that.

MicahWedemeyer• 17 years ago

Am I missing something, or are screenshots impossible to fake now? I make fake screens all the time for fun.

citrik• 17 years ago

So, I'm a little confused about the root issue here. Can anyone explain what's so special about Google Voice compared to Skype? It seems that Apple has approved an app with a similar functionality in Skype for the iPhone. Is there something extra special about Google Voice that I'm not seeing? If the two apps are functionally identical maybe Apple is hung up on some aspect of the implementation. The whole "Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone” sounds like it could be more of a technical issue vs a functionality / religion issue. (Religion being Thou shall not make phone calls without glorious At&T)

j_b_f• 17 years ago

There's no relevant difference between GV and the plethora VOIP & dialer apps out there. At least none that would be explained away with a straight face by the "core functionality" argument.

blhack• 17 years ago

Google voice not only replaces visual voice mail, it improves it dramatically.

Apparently, AT&T sunk a massive amount of cash into this feature.

Google also offers the ability to send and receive text messages (a major revenue generator for phone companies) for free.

Google voice basically took every reason you should drop cash on an iphone, and gave it away for free.

econoplas• 17 years ago

Apple could easily reject Google voice app with their "thy program shalt not containeth an interpretereth" loophole in the iPhone SDK agreement section 3.3.2... they've done this with at least one app that I'm aware of (http://toucharcade.com/2009/06/20/full-commodore-64-emulator... and http://www.manomio.com/index.php/blog/important_update).

How many programs nowadays of the complexity of Google voice don't use some kind of internal state machine interpreter or domain-specific-language to simplify the programming model?

So they could use that loophole in a negative way to hinder competition whenever they choose to do so, not saying they "would" but they certainly "could".

GHFigs4• 17 years ago

Except they "didn't". They've already listed their reasons (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/apple-answers-fcc-questions/) and to my knowledge have never used the interpreter rule in anything remotely resembling the way you describe.

ulysses• 17 years ago

Really? Contradicting something another company has said is "A Nuke"?

A nuke would be Google search blocking iPhones.

WilliamLP• 17 years ago

A nuke would be critical mass of U235 dropped on Apple headquarters:)

Luc• 17 years ago

I would have appreciated a more descriptive title instead of the tabloid style one. Apologies if that seems fussy.

arithmetic• 17 years ago

Does anyone even care? Even if there was Google Voice on the iPhone, would you use it?

Having said that, the TC headline may as well be right. This is one nuke that Apple is going to find hard to swallow.

Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight.

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