Playing Devil's Advocate with iPhone and Google Voice

clipped from daringfireball.net By John Gruber But does anyone really think AT&T pulls the strings in this relationship? Google Voice doesn’t just interfere with the carrier’s business model, it interferes with Apple’s iPhone business model. Not just AT&T but all iPhone carrier partners pay Apple a hefty subsidy for every iPhone sold, and that subsidy is based on assumptions about how much the average iPhone customer is going to pay in monthly service charges for voice, data, and SMS. And, to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I’m not sure the decision is entirely unreasonable. think about it in terms of Apple’s competition with Google. Google Voice is a mobile phone service provided by the maker of one of the biggest competitors to the iPhone OS What if Google Voice were instead Microsoft Voice? Would you be as surprised then that Apple is discouraging iPhone owners from using the service? Just saying.

Interesting point of view.