去年7月28日，苹果对其应用商店（App Store）清理门户，一批支持Google Voice的iPhone应用被莫名其妙且很不客气地扫地出门，随后人们得知，遭殃的并不只是这些第三方应用，官方版的Google Voice应用也难逃此劫，该案还一度沸沸扬扬地闹上了联邦通讯委员会（FCC）。直至今年，Google Voice在苹果应用商店依旧踪迹杳杳。但最近，苹果方面似乎开始松口，看来Google Voice重返iPhone的日子不会太遥远了。

GV Mobile

日前，苹果首次对外公布了一份应用准则，详细列出了苹果应用商店禁止的应用类型。Google Voice的第三方应用GV Mobile的开发商肖恩.科瓦奇（Sean Kovacs）仔细查阅了这份多达100条以上的苹果应用准则，认为自己的应用并无违规嫌疑，因此满怀希望地向苹果应用批准委员会发送电邮，询问GV Mobile是否可以复出，苹果方面的答复令他大为振奋。据称，苹果方面的负责人告知他，根据苹果刚刚公布的准则，GV Mobile并未逾纪，可以重新提交苹果应用商店审核，这一结果比科瓦奇原先的预期要好得多，因为他之前对此问题的咨询总是杳无音讯。

当然，这事的结局如何仍然有待观望，Google Voice是否顺利重返iPhone尚无定论。因为这也有可能是苹果应用商店的审核专员搞错了，谁知道苹果后来会不会说GV Mobile违反了第8.3条规定呢？因为该条规定声明“禁止容易与苹果原有产品混淆的应用，或者带有广告嫌疑的应用”，这就好像去年夏天苹果向联邦通讯委员会提交的“那些应用功能降低”的解释一样理由充分。或者还有另一种皆大欢喜的结果，那就是Google Voice及其第三方应用被顺利放行，重归苹果应用商店大本营。

为确认这一说法，我们同时联系了苹果和谷歌，苹果方面的答复是Google Voice通过重新审核后很有可能重返苹果应用商店，谷歌方面则表示，“目前黑莓和Android手机用户都可以使用Google Voice，我们也为iPhone提供HTML5网页应用，除此之外，我们暂无其他情况可以公布。”

Fingers Crossed: Google Voice May Be Returning To The App Store

On July 28 2009, a pair of iPhone applications that offered support for Google Voice were unceremoniously, and without warning, removed from Apple’s App Store. We then learned that Apple had blocked the official Google Voice application as well, which eventually led to an FCC inquiry. A year later, Google Voice was still missing from the App Store. Now it looks like there may be a glimmer of hope for getting Google Voice on your iPhone.

This morning Apple released guidelines explicitly spelling out for the first time what it would reject from the App Store. Sean Kovacs, the developer of third party Google Voice application GV Mobile (which was removed from the App Store over a year ago), read through each of the 100+ rules, and he concluded that his app didn’t seem to violate any of them. He emailed Apple’s approval board to see if he could possibly get his app reinstated. The response was encouraging.

I reached out to Kovacs, who says that an Apple representative responded that given the new guidelines released today, he was welcome to resubmit GV Mobile for review. Which is a much better response than he’s been getting before now (radio silence).

Of course, nothing is certain yet. This could be a case of an App Store reviewer stepping out of line and making a mistake. It’s possible that Apple will say this violates rule 8.3, which states“Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected” (this is similar to the “reducing functionality” explanation that Apple gave to the FCC last summer).

Or it could mean that Google Voice, albeit from a third party application, could finally be making its way back to the iPhone.

We’ve reached out to both Apple and Google to see if there has been a change and will update when we hear back.

Update: Google has given us this statement:

“We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”

Good News：I did get confirmation back from Apple that it will most likely get back in once i resubmit.（source：TechCrunch）

声明：本文中文为游戏邦翻译，英文原文采用TechCrunch，转载请保留版权信息，谢谢！