The Google iPhone Spat

4:05 PM -- Check out this piece from Slate on Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) banning Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) apps from the iPhone.

The crux of the article is this:

The iPhone runs on public networks and therefore falls under government jurisdiction. At the very least, the regulators have a duty to ensure fair competition on wireless networks—and by arbitrarily blocking rivals from its device, the iPhone's software platform simply isn't fair. We would never accept its rules in other contexts: Imagine if Apple were building cars instead of phones and one day decided that everyone who'd bought an iCar would be banned from listening to any music not purchased from iTunes. Or say that Apple banned all Mac users from downloading Firefox because the browser duplicated the functionality of Safari. Such restrictions sound ridiculous; they wouldn't pass the barest scrutiny of regulators or consumers. So why should we allow Apple to do the same thing with the iPhone?

It is a laudable sentiment but one that would have much wider implications in the telecom industry if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) were to apply this logic to cellular operators wholesale.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung