New iPhone software, but is Google getting special treatment?

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New iPhone software, but is Google getting special treatment?

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 24 November, 2008

READ MORE: Google | iPhone

Apple has released version 2.2 of its iPhone software, delivering several highly anticipated features such as enhanced Maps and direct podcast downloads. However, its controversial rules for its App Store are attracting new levels of criticism, with smaller developers claiming they are not being allowed to compete fairly with giants like Google.

Many of the new features supported by the software update center on location awareness, particularly Google Maps. Google Street View is now included, giving users 360-degree views of locations, through pictures taken from car-mounted cameras. Walking directions and information on public transport stops have also been added to Maps, but there are no turn-by-turn directions.

Also, the iPhone can now download podcasts directly over Wi-Fi or 3G, rather than having to download first to the PC, though this does not appear to apply to songs, as hoped. And Apple promises improved phone quality to reduce dropped calls.

There are three changes to the user interface. The Safari browser now has a search box next to the URL box, which most reviewers complain makes both far too small, though freeing up space on the screen. Autocorrect can now be turned off and on, and the Home key works from any screen.

As always on the iPhone, the weaknesses lie in its business functionality, where it still loses out to RIM, and Apple's tough and sometimes inconsistent rules for developers in App Store. Business users still complain of frequent crashes and freezes in Mail and Safari; there is no

on-device data encryption; and passwords are limited to four-digit numeric PINs. Also, users cannot synchronize notes or cut and paste data.

On the App Store front, there is a growing roar of protest at the sometimes random way that Apple seems to enforce its rules, and the new Google search app with voice recognition has highlighted their grievances. Basically, the app breaks many of the Apple rules, and software houses say that Apple's political allies are being allowed to do this, making it impossible for smaller developers to compete fairly, since they cannot make use of the 'illegal' APIs and features that Google is using.

Google Mobile harnesses iPhone technology that is supposed to be off-limits to third party developers, according to research done by Daring Fireball's John Gruber. In particular, it uses the handset's proximity sensor, which detects when the device is close to a head to make a call, turning off the screen and preventing the phone being accidentally turned off by the user's face. Third parties are only allowed, under App Store rules, to support this sensor for simple on-off functionality, but Google uses it to enhance web searches and respond to voice prompts, and this could only have been achieved by using an API that is excluded from Apple's public list. This would normally result in a developer being banished from the App Store. "If regular developers are forced to play by the rules, but Google is allowed to use private APIs, just because they're Google, the system is rigged," Gruber wrote.