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Back to school time is rapidly approaching, and shopping time is upon us.  Those enrolled in classes are well aware of the drill: laptops, books notebooks, pens, exorbitant tuition fees - and thanks to Boost Mobile, cell phones have been added to the list.  The Sprint subsidiary has teamed up with Barnes & Noble stores on various college campuses to offer Boost Mobile products and services.  The Motorola Clutch and the Motorola i776 are available at the various locations for $129.99 and $99.99, respectively.  Combined with the $50 unlimited plan, the package isn't a bad deal at all.

In March, Adriana wrote a fantastic article about users migrating from postpaid to prepaid services due to the recessionary economy (in fact, 26 percent of cell phone users said that they would consider switching to prepaid).  With tuition and textbook costs rising, I'd be willing to say that it's a smart move on Boost Mobile's part.  Anyone considering a migration?

 

So much virtual ink has been spilled within the tech sphere over the Google Voice/Apple App Store fiasco, and yet I still can't quite wrap my head around how I feel about the whole thing. Certain Silicon Valley types, tech bloggers, and diehard fanboys and Apple haters have shouted from their laptops about Apple's - or is it AT&T's? - "evil" business practices ever since all GV-related wares were pulled from the App Store last week.

And yet, I'd dare say that most of the world's iPhone users couldn't care less about the whole thing if they even know what "A Google Voice" is to begin with. As some commenter somewhere pointed out on some blog I read over the weekend, Google Voice is still an invite-only service, so it's not like Apple went and yanked a public utility out of the hands of all iPhone owners. I got my GV invite last week, and the gates to GV Nirvana do seem to have been at least semi-opened as of late, but Google still controls who gets an invite - it's not a come one, come all setup. And much like Apple's App Store review process, Google doesn't tell the public who's getting those invites, or when, or why.

Beyond that, Apple, AT&T, and Google are all corporations in the business of making money. They all function in a Capitalist society under laws and by-laws designed to foster corporate growth and reward companies who can tap into consumer desires. Apple gets a lot of grief for doing things their own way - a very tightly guarded, private way that often smacks of elitism and telling, not giving, customers what they want, at least to certain people. Google gets less grief than Apple these days, but has amassed an insane amount of capital and influence by more or less controlling how people find information on the Internet and seeking to monetize as much of that information-seeking process as possible. Some would go so far as to call Google an "online ad shop" before they'd call them a "search engine."

Which isn't to say that Google is "just as evil" or "as much to blame" as AT&T or Apple for this whole drama. I, frankly, have no idea why all things GV - or Slingbox, etc, etc - are no longer available to contract-abiding iPhone subscribers when the are available to their BlackBerry and WinMo-toting brethren on AT&T's wireless network. I also have no idea why Apple approved some 900+ apps from a single developer only to then yank them all and revoke his Dev Program license without warning. That is, I get why the license was yanked, but I wonder why Apple approved NINE HUNDRED of his apps before they realized what kind of copyright infringing junk they were putting on their virtual shelves in the first place.

My point is that we've entered a new age of digital entrepreneurship, consumerism, and regulation which probably has some parallels to bygone eras ranging from the Gold Rush of 1849 to the Dot Com Bubble of the late 1990's/early 2000's. The rules are being made up, enforced, and changed as we go, and lots of money is being made, spent, and lost at a head-spinning pace. Not so long ago, when the only cell phone "apps" most consumers knew about lived on carrier decks and carrier decks alone, complaints about and regulations regarding those apps drew a lot less attention from journalists and consumers alike than they do now. There are probably two reasons for that, namely Apple and Blogs. Apple opened the bank vault when it comes to monetizing mobile software, and the Blogs have been there to report on, speculate as to, and complain about the process in real time since Day One.

Apple's approach to their App Store is born out of their approach to everything they do. They control the entire experience, from conception to launch to marketing to post-sale service, and they're so confident that they're offering a winning product that consumers will buy that they don't worry about features they've "missed" or how closed their internal processes are to everyone from journalists to developers. Or, at least, they don't give the outward appearance of worrying about such things - the company's legendary secrecy veils quite a bit of internal debate and angst, I'd imagine, even if said debate and angst ultimately comes down to the decision making of that one dude in the CEO's chair.

So it's no surprise, really, that Apple's App Store approval process has inspired all sorts of outrage and frustration from the same developers clamoring to get their work into the store while praising the power and utility of the iPhone SDK. What's also not surprising is that Apple has approved, disapproved, and yanked many apps both high-profile and low, without offering anything approaching a sufficient explanation for the decisions, and yet consumers keep buying iPhones and developers keep buying Dev Program memberships. In typical Apple fashion, they've made a product that consumers want (two products, really: the iPhone for consumers and the App Store for developers) and so long as they're moving units and generating a profit there's no real reason to change their approach, right?

Except now the Feds are involved. Now Apple has gone and become so successful with the App Store that their black box control over what gets onto that store's shelves might just be definable as unfair trade practices, especially since they're dealing with wireless communication devices, and not "just" computers. I'm no lawyer, so I won't even try to speculate on what aspects of the App Store verge into "Antitrust" and "Monopoly" territory, but it's no coincidence that the FCC opened their investigation last week and Google's CEO left Apple's board this week, right?

And, oh yeah, that CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, is and has been a big supporter of current US President Barack Obama. While that doesn't necessarily mean that he had something to do with the FCC "suddenly" deciding to investigate Apple's App Store practices when a Google app got rejected, it is an interesting footnote at the least. One way or another the Federal government decided to get involved, and one way or another Apple and Google seem to be publicly formalizing the growing competitive aspects of their relationship at the same time.

As for AT&T, I don't even know where to begin. Silicon Valley bloggers are having a field day as of late posting screeds with titles like, "Can AT&T Handle the iPhone?" I've even joined the fray a few times based on my growing frustration with my own AT&T service (which I pay for myself) and the fact that unlimited service for the most popular smartphone in America (iPhone) costs 50% more than its nearest competitor (Palm Pre) but doesn't yet include MMS messaging.

But really, it's not like there's a clear villain and a clear (if any) hero in this scenario. All three of the corporate players involved want to make money, even if one of them still clings to "Do No Evil" as their company motto. All three of the corporate players involved exercise black box control of one sort or another over what they offer to consumers, as well: Apple with the App Store, Google with their invite-only services like Google Voice, and AT&T with their service agreements. And those are just examples - search through the terms and conditions attached to Apple, AT&T, and Google's entire range products and services and you'll find all kinds of things that you as a consumer can or can't do just because the company said so.

Honestly, though, that's how it works in a free market society.  Right?  A company makes a product, you decide if that product holds value for you, and then you buy it or pass on it. I'm no lawyer, but I honestly don't see what jurisdiction the FCC has to regulate what Apple chooses to sell - or not sell - in their private software store. As I read on some other blog at some other point over the weekend, "So I can't buy a Prius at a GM dealership. So what?" By that logic, if you want Google Voice on your smartphone, skip iPhone and get a device that supports GV. Makes sense to me.

I really don't know what the FCC is doing getting mixed up in all of this, and I mean that quite literally. I'm guessing it has something to do with the broad meaning of "telecom" when it comes to government rules and regulations. I'm also guessing that it has something to do with Google's position/strategy regarding an Open Internet, new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's history as an aggressive technology executive, and the various links between those two factors, perhaps including Dr. Schmidt's relationship with President Obama. When Google says they want a free and open Internet just remember that the more stuff you do via a Web browser and not a closed, native app, the more opportunities Google has to sell ads against your search and browser-based activities.

There is, of course, much more to the FCC's newly growing role in the regulation of consumer-facing wireless products and services, including their investigation into handset exclusivity deals. Advocates of exclusivity reform say that deals that keep cutting edge products exclusive to major carriers - like iPhone on AT&T - unfairly prevent customers in smaller markets from having access to said products. In other words, if you live in the country where you can't get AT&T service, the government should step in to ensure that your local carrier can offer you the iPhone.

Still, I'd like to see Joe Consumer decide this one. While it bugs me that Apple dictates what software you can and can't install your my iPhone (unless you jailbreak it), it would bug me much more if the government stepped in to decide the same. In a perfect world Apple would at least make their App Store approval process more transparent. But even as it is now, if you don't like the way Apple does business you can buy your phone from someone else; it's not as though the iPhone is the only device in town that makes calls, sends texts and emails, browses the Web, and so forth.

So why should the FCC step in to tell Apple what to do? Seriously, if you know, tell us in the comments. I'm not 100% on this one, but the more I read up on the matter the more I keep thinking, "This sucks, but if the government starts deciding what products stores are allowed to sell, that will suck more. Much more. I'd rather just have the option to get fed up with Apple (or Microsoft and many others before them) and stop buying their products."

What say you? Does the FCC have any business meddling in the App Store business? Does Apple have the right to decide what winds up on the shelves of their store without any explanation owed to consumers or developers?  Is the whole thing a non-big-deal that's been blown out of proportion by Silicon Valley bloggers? Sound off in the comments!

 

Last Friday I received a review copy of O'Reilly's new book, Best iPhone Apps by Josh Clark. A proper review of the book is forthcoming, but upon first glance (well, multiple glances, really) it's a great book - One-page reviews of 200 or so apps, organized into categories and laid out in an attractive, coffee table-style layout that's conducive to spending a few minutes or an hour or more with at a time. The reviews are generally short but sweet, and many apps are listed with a few alternative choices (in case you just hate Yelp! or Epicurious, and so on).

Thanks to Clark's book I've discovered my newest time-wasting friend, Galcon. Galcon is kind of like Risk meets an arcade game, and is available in both free (demo) and paid versions for iPhone OS as well as PC/Mac/Linux and Web-based versions for computer-based play. Equal parts strategy and action, Galcon's premise is simple: Take over the universe one planet at a time before your opponent(s) does. In the basic player-vs-computer mode, you and the CPU each start out with one planet entirely to yourself. Each of the remaining planets on the screen has a size and a number - the size represents that planet's capacity to produce ships and the number tells you how many ships are on the planet at the current time. You click to send a portion of your fleet to a particular planet, and if you send enough ships you make that planet your own (indicated by the planet changing color). The more planets you occupy, and the higher their rates of production, the more ships you'll have in your fleet.

Thing is, your opponent is doing the same thing at the same time as you are, and eventually you'll wind up at war with them. That leads to ships flying all over the screen and planets changing colors and numbers in rapid succession. You can control what percentage of your fleet to send from a particular planet on each attack by tapping a percentage meter in the corner of the screen, and you can select multiple planets for coordinated attacks, as well. Like I said, Risk meets arcade game (okay, I stole that line from the Galcon website).

Galcon's a great fit for the iPhone OS because it's quick to learn and play a round or two, but highly addictive. Each round is re-playable, too, as a quick re-mapping of the planets leads to new strategy and gameplay scenarios. The free demo version is limited to ten levels of human-vs-computer play (each level gets faster and harder), but the full paid version adds all sorts of goodies including online multiplayer play and twists like "Stealth Mode" in which you can't see your opponents ships flying towards various planets. And iPhone OS' multitouch capabilities suit Galcon's rapid fire, multiple point of attack game play well, too.

I grew totally obsessed with Galcon in short order, and am currently on a self-imposed, "Put the game down" break so I can get some work done. But it's great fun, if kind of maddening at the harder levels. Galcon Lite is a free download, and the full version is $2.99, via the Apple App Store. As mentioned, versions are also available for desktop and Web play on the Galcon.com website.