I admit, I was one of those to pile on ol' Ma Bell as the culprit for keeping the Google Voice app (don't I wish that was a real iTunes link) off the App Store. Restrictions on Skype and the SlingPlayer app on the iPhone had conditioned me to believe that the "game changing" iPhone had, well, a completely different set of rules applied to it by AT&T. While many in the tech community continued to jump atop the dog pile, in which AT&T was at the very bottom, Apple ran the ball back the other way without anybody noticing.

Apple's response to the FCC's questions covers several areas -- including the fact that it acted alone without AT&T's consultation -- in rejecting not yet allowing the Google Voice app. Almost as striking as Apple's admitted culpability, however, is its rationale for it, which smacks of odd logic and damages the spirit of the App Store.

In short, Apple states that it rejected "continues to study" Google Voice because, in its current form, the app "replaces the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface for telephone calls, text messages and voicemail."

While the iPhone is more than the sum of its parts, the phone portion of it is arguably the least compelling when compared to other features. Out of the box, the iPhone comes with several apps pre-installed. And, based on their placement at the foot of the home screen (as well as Steve Jobs' Macworld proclamation), Apple views the iPhone as "an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator (Safari and Mail)." But the advent of the App Store and the third party apps that arrived with it further reinvented a device that had already reinvented the entire tech market. If the iPhone wasn't already viewed as a computer-first, phone-a-distant-second device, it certainly took this form after the App Store.

Taken at face value, Apple's rationale for rejecting Google Voice also means that YouMail [iTunes link], TextFree [iTunes link], and Skype [iTunes link] should be rejected as well. As Mike noted yesterday, YouMail could serve as a replacement for Visual Voicemail, TextFree could supplant the iPhone's SMS client, and Skype could do both, albeit in a different and slightly limited capacity.

The iTunes App Store has been more than a little embattled in the last couple of months, but at least one app developer is soldiering on: according to Engadget, the maker of Slingbox, Sling Media, has recently submitted SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 to Apple for approval.

The most significant changes involve true 16:9 widescreen support that utilizes all 3.5 glorious inches of the iPhone or iPod touch screen, and a new browser for Dish Network users that has touch support and is native to iPhone OS, as opposed to pushing through the standard browsing screen used on TVs. There is no mention of other cable providers, so presumably they are not in on the scheme for now.

The browser announcement primarily concerns only U.S. customers, and is dwarfed by one concerning carriers that are not AT&T: the non-U.S. version of SlingPlayer Mobile 1.1 will support streaming video over a 3G connection (the current version requires a Wi-Fi connection).

Again, this is only what Slingbox has put out for approval, and the mighty mercurial temperament of Apple's app approvers still stands in the way. These are changes that Sling Media needs to happen: as of this writing, SlingPlayer Mobile 1.0 (priced at $29.99 and requiring the purchase of a Slingbox unit) is struggling a bit with customer satisfaction, and has an equal number of five star and one star reviews. Ideally, the native browser and 3G support will cross borders in both directions, which will make the application very desirable. Here's hoping Apple lets SlingPlayer take these steps.

Reflecting on my last post -- and how unbelievable the AT&T statement was that they have nothing to do with what gets approved in Apple's App Store -- convinced me I needed to refresh my dimming memory banks.

Remember all the flames about whether Skype would come out for the iPhone last year? Then, at the 2008 conference last year, none other than Steve Jobs told the assembled multitudes that he would love to see a VoIP application for the iPhone as long as it used Wi-Fi and not the cellular data network. That, of course, was designed to protect AT&T, and while AT&T might not have insisted, Jobs knew he couldn't allow a full version of Skype or any other similar voice client.

That caused the internet advocacy group Free Press to complain to the FCC, but nothing really happened. Now there is a new president, with a different view of net neutrality than that held by the Bush Administration. There's a new FCC Commissioner as well, Julius Genachowski.

I would expect this whole area of restricting freedom of access to be a big issue in the coming weeks and months. We may not hear what answers Google, AT&T and Apple give to the FCC queries right away, but they'll likely leak out eventually.

We may yet see some changes in some of these restrictive policies and more competition among cell phone providers and carriers. That benefits just about everyone. Perhaps the fight over crippled or banned apps like Skype, Google Voice and the SlingPlayer for iPhone has ignited a debate that could finally change things.

SlingMedia thinks so. In a brief note on the Sling website, the company notes: "We are in close contact with our partners at Apple and are optimistic that it will be approved soon. We hope the wait won't be much longer."

Hopefully the company knows something the pundits and rumor mongers don't. It's been a month of excitement followed by depression as lightly-sourced rumors spread that Apple would turn down the highly anticipated app at the request of AT&T, who worried about all the bandwidth the app would use. There was even a change in the AT&T Terms of Service, that the company later disowned and apologized for.

Of course other phones sold by AT&T and other carriers do offer the SlingPlayer Mobile app, but no other single phone has the footprint that the iPhone has.

There have also been rumors that the app might support WiFi only, which would be a tremendous downer for people who expected to be able to Sling away from just about anywhere. Hopefully, this whole soap opera is drawing to a close, but Sling fans shouldn't throw away their torches and pitchforks just yet.

Thanks to Matt for the tip.

It's something many iPhone owners have been waiting for since the iPhone first appeared 2 years ago. It was on again, off again, will they, won't they?

Well, it seems they did. Sling has announced that SlingPlayer for iPhone has been submitted to the app store for approval. The company had previously said the app would be submitted this quarter, and it's in just under the wire.

Sling already has versions for Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm smart phones. No one can predict when, or if, Apple will approve the software, but there will be iPhone owners with pitchforks and torches outside Apple headquarters if the much sought-after app does not appear soon.

The Slingplayer is a multimedia system that allows people who have one to watch their TV or other video sources on a PC or laptop, from anywhere in the world. The mobile versions allow you to control your home TV from your handheld device, changing channels, even controlling a DVR. It's a tremendously popular system, and that will be enhanced when the iPhone version makes the scene.

Hopefully, AT&T is on board, and Apple realizes that the SlingPlayer will drive even more iPhone sales. Now stand back and watch the buzz build. Yay. Finally.

Thanks to Rob for the tip.

We've mentioned the SlingPlayer for Mac client several times since it was first publicly revealed back at Macworld and now Sling Media has officially released it after several months in beta. This version includes support for the Apple TV (as we mentioned before) and word on the web is that it is considerably more Mac-like than the early betas, supposedly sporting a revamped interface compliant with Apple's Human Interface Guidelines.

So if you've been interested in a Slingbox for "placeshifting" video content across the internet, now might be a good time to pull the trigger. SlingPlayer for Mac is a free download from Sling Media.

Thanks, Lee!

We've featured screenshots of it, reported that is would be available on Halloween, and generally anxiously awaited its arrival. Our wait is over, as SlingPlayer is now available for OS X, though it is still in beta. SlingPlayer, you'll remember, works together with a SlingBox to stream your TV over the network to a number of devices including Macs, PCs, and PDAs.

You'll need a SlingBox, OS X 10.4, and a Mac (Intel or PowerPC) to use this beta. What you can't use, though, is an Airport Express. As explained in the FAQ, since the SlingBox needs to be hardwired to your broadband source.

Since I don't have a SlingBox I can't offer up many screenshots, but there is one after the jump
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We've mentioned that Sling Media, the makers of the TV streaming Slingbox, are planning on a late October/early November release for the OS X version of SlingPlayer. SlingPlayer is the client that allows you to watch TV streamed from the SlingBox on a variety of devices (soon to include Macs running OS X).

At the moment Sling is running a Beta, and no one has been able to get good screenshots of the client. We linked to a video yesterday that showed off some of the features, but that just wasn't good enough. One of my contacts called me up and arranged for a meeting in a remote underground garage. Once there he handed me a titanium briefcase and whispered in my ear, 'They call it a beta, but it runs like production software' before he ran off. I opened the case to find a small USB thumbdrive. 'Rather dramatic,' I thought as I went home to discover what was waiting on that drive.

Read on to see the screencaps of the SlingPlayer that my source (who is shrouded in a fog of mystery so deep even I do not know what they look like) handed over to me.

We've written about the Slingbox in the past. If you're not aware of what Sling does, it is a network device that streams live TV from your television (or Tivo, or DVR) to a number of different devices including PDAs, PCs, and soon Macs. This video shows off the Sling Player for OS X running on a MacBook.

This thing is so cool that I'll forgive the Sling guy for calling the Dock a 'taskbar.'

Oh, and the public beta for Mac should be available at the end of October/start of November.

[via Gizmos for Geeks]