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Apple is sure to receive much positive buzz after its product launch later today, but Google is ensuring we don't forget the dark side of the iPhone/App Store model. Google's battle with its former best friend to get the Voice app into the Apple store has been epic, and had repercussions far beyond its immediate importance to users, even becoming the subject of a US antitrust probe. Now the search giant has got Voice in by the back door, as a web application, which allows it to circumvent the Apple review process.

This is not a compromise on Google's part, but a loud statement of its mobile philosophy - that as devices get more web-optimized and connectivity faster and more ubiquitous, the days of downloadable apps from stores tailored to small gadgets will be over. Instead, everything will go via the cloud and the browser, the latter's role significantly enhanced (as in Chrome OS) to take over most of the functions of the operating system.

There are all kinds of obstacles of course, not least the patchy and unpredictable nature of 3G connections in most areas. But such a model would drive massive internet traffic, helping Google's revenues both at the client services end with ads, and the back end, via its huge cloud servers. It would also help achieve the move towards open access for which Google has lobbied for years, breaking down the carriers' walled gardens once and for all. And that would take the sting out of the tail of Apple, which has single-handedly rejuvenated the walled garden model with its long term operator exclusives and tightly guarded App Store gates.

Google Voice as a web app is, then, highly symbolic and potentially disruptive, even if it takes a few more releases before its actual usage impacts that of mobile Skype. While Palm (also supported by the new product) has embraced the open web concept in webOS, offering a browser-based, free distribution of apps in parallel to the conventional store, Apple will find this deeply disturbing, and we can expect another round of conflict between the two companies and their preferred business models.

The reworked Google Voice for iPhone is an internet-based service offering US users free domestic calling and cheap long distance calls along with voice and messaging tools that can only be accessed through the browser. Far from suggesting the web version is a trade-off, Google claims it is more interactive than the previous mobile app, with features such as listening to voicemail from within the browser, plus an interactive on-screen dialling pad. The version is optimized for iPhone 3.0 and above, and Palm webOS.

The growing hostility between Apple and Google reached a peak last August when the FCC launched an enquiry into why Google Voice had been rejected in the App Store process and two third party, Voice-related apps removed. Apple continues to maintain that it has not actually rejected Voice but continues to study it, amid concerns that it might "interfere with the iPhone's distinctive user experience" by replacing "the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail."

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