Google Voice to Take Over the World?

In case you have been away from your Google Reader or simply don’t know about GappleGate, there’s been a bit of a story buzzing this summer between two tech titans: Google and Apple. The short and simple is that Google wanted to make an iPhone app for Google Voice (GV) and Apple or AT&T or some combination of the two said no. This has spawned some inquiries by the FCC and Apple has been trying to calm the backlash with detailed responses on its website.

So Apple, ever the anarchist, is looking less like the counter-corporate image it has worked so hard to cultivate and much more like what it really is: a very successful, but controlling company that wants to make money. As MG Siegler of TechCrunch put it: By controlling the ecosystem surrounding their products, Apple ensures a great user experience for the majority of users. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise for anyone, if you have ever seen their ads or stores then you know how meticulous and neat everything is (they just spin it as minimalism but we all know how hard it is to keep things clean). They may try to appear laid back, but they even cleaned up the scruff on the Mac Guy from when he first debuted.

Now can you blame Apple for not wanting Google Voice on its phone? Not really. Plenty of people are touting GV’s capabilities, including Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, who made the switch from iPhone to Google Voice and hasn’t turned back. Arrington and MG even had entertaining dispute showing some of the finer differences between the two.

Does this mean Apple should be scared? Not enough to panic and fumble the PR as bad as it has. But Google Voice is good, it’s a perfect example of what Google does: taking something and making it organized and stupid-simple to use. From an economics standpoint it could lower borders and create freer movement between phones and phone contracts. This is huge because that means more intense competition and if anything that helps one person: the consumer. Phone carriers getting into a battle could mean cheaper contracts or maybe just simpler contracts. It also gives other phones ways to keep Google on their toes, it’s called creative destruction and it is what will hopefully make the difference in rough economic times.

The phone contract aspect is a very simple starting point of it all. More profound, long term (most likely stretching reality) ramifications are in the way Google Voice can facilitate the movement from one place to another, making for a more mobile workforce and that is a good thing. A mobile workforce means people can get to the place where their skills and attributes fit best. Insert saddening, yet optimistic-for-the-future reference to the economy here...

To return to the question first posed, will Google Voice take over the world? Obviously not, the “more mobile workforce” theory is very theoretical and assumes a bit of exaggeration. But Google Voice is a great, simplifying product that can compliment everyone’s phone experience like cereal and milk or Chianti and pizza, depending on your taste.