By now, we’re all aware of Apple’s rejection of Google Voice for the iPhone. For those of you who don’t follow such things (what are you doing

here, btw?), Google Voice gives you one phone number that rings all your phones (home, mobile, etc.), transcribes voicemail to text, and saves your voicemail online.

Apple’s official reasoning was that the app duplicates functions of the hardware and the carrier, and AT&T denies having anything to do with the decision whatsoever. Now the FCC is investigating. Yes, even the Feds are up in arms over Apple’s snubbing of the app, which is still in private beta!

What’s more, there seems to be a trending attitude of “forget Apple!” spreading like wildfire amongst the once loyal-to-the-death iPhone users. Among them is the man with arguably the most influence among technophiles, TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington who recently quit his iPhone cold turkey, opting for T-mobile’s MyTouch 3G.  That phone runs runs the open-source Android operating system, where “all apps are created equal.” Google Voice is also available on the Blackberry platform as a native app, and an unofficial version is available on Palm’s WebOS. With other choices available, it looks like consumers are beginning to break free from Apple’s glossy spell.

I’m curious: if you were unbound by any contracts and money weren’t an issue, which phone and carrier would you choose today? iPhone users, are you becoming fed up with Apple and AT&T?

Facebook

Back on my old web-tech blog, which I’ve now dedicated to specifically career-related posts, I had posted two headlines I was sick of seeing in 2009. This was only in January, mind you. Since I thought the vibe fit this site better, I’ve moved the post here. I’ll back-date it for when it was written, and then write you all a new post of headlines we’re sick of soon. Any suggestions?

Netflix defies recession with profits up 45%!

Duh. The news has only been out for a few days now, but I just don’t understand why everyone is so amazed at the mail-order movie rental biz’ recently announced Q408 success. We’re in a freaking recession, people. A family can’t afford to drop a c-note at the cinaplex these days, or even the gas to get to the lame-o Hollywood Video (by the way, how are they surviving? No mail delivery, way more expensive than the dvd vending boxes… new post idea!) Anyway, Netflix is an awesome company with an awesome product, that happens to be perfectly positioned for times like this. (Queue Bald Brian’s drop of the laragmag.com guys: “Next story. NEXT!”)

[insert frivolous app name] for iPhone
Is this really news anymore? Yeah, we get it, there are thousands of apps being developed every day for the iPhone, ninety percent of which waste time. With regard to the aforementioned recession, shouldn’t we be focusing more on ways to get actual work done!? Do we really need a better way to plurk from your iPhone!? Is anyone missing work or failing at relationships because they can’t plurk in the most efficient manner from their iPhone? Jesus effing Christ, can you imagine having the following conversation with someone sitting next to you on your evening bus/train commute:

Torn-jeans hipster sitting next to you: Oh man, life sucks.

You, wondering why he’s even talking to you: Uh, what’s wrong.

Hipster: I’m just not happy with the way the Plurk app is handling my plurks on the iPhone.

You: I just lost my job. They took away my Blackberry, which I had used to GET ACTUAL WORK DONE. I was a good employee, dammit! I…

Hipster, interrupting: Woah, woah, dude. Stop harshing my mel. You should get an iPhone and plurk about that stuff.

You punch hipster in the face (and ironically steal his iPhone and plurk about it).

Facebook