Google acknowledged breaking the official rules of Apple's iPhone software development kit when it created the latest version of the Google Mobile application for the iPhone, but denied a more serious charge.
A Google spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Google Mobile uses undocumented APIs (application programming interfaces) in order to use the iPhone's proximity sensor to prompt a verbal search. iPhone developers were only supposed to use the APIs that Apple published in its SDK when they create their applications under the terms of that agreement.
Google has denied, however, a more serious charge that it was linking to private or dynamic frameworks in the Google Mobile application. That's considered a big no-no in the development community.
The problem with using undocumented APIs is that your application code could break in the future as Apple updates its software, but a lot of developers appear to have taken that risk in order to deliver a cool feature, such as Google's verbal search prompt.
Under the original terms of the SDK, however, applications using such techniques were not supposed to make it through to the App Store. As a result, other developers who played strictly by the SDK rules would not have felt it possible to create an application that duplicated Google's voice prompt using the proximity sensor, whereas those who had the resources to quickly rewrite anything that ran afoul of the App Store gatekeepers could push ahead and test Apple's limits.
Given Apple's uneven process for approving applications onto the App Store, the question has continued to come up as to whether Apple's ability to keep up with the flood of applications into the App Store has been stretched to the breaking point. It's not clear whether Apple knew Google was using the undocumented APIs when it approved Google Mobile, or whether it simply missed that code.
Google might be forced to rewrite the code for Google Mobile or change the way the application uses the proximity sensor if Apple decides to enforce the terms of the SDK. A number of Apple representatives appeared to be on vacation this week, and so requests for comment are not likely to be immediately returned.
Reporters were put into a frenzy this week when Google announced it was set to launch version two of its mobile search application for the iPhone that included the addition of voice-powered search, allowing you to skip the keyboard altogether. But now the question is, where is it?
My colleague Josh Lowensohn reported on the application on Thursday, and duly noted on Friday afternoon that it still wasn't available in Apple's App Store. But as of Saturday afternoon, the application was still MIA. A search on the App Store returned only the older version of the Google Mobile App.
According to The New York Times, Google planned to release the free application through the iTunes Store "as soon as Friday." The application, an update to Google Mobile App, is meant to allow you to talk into your phone, ask any question, and the results of your query will then be offered up on your iPhone.
One reason for the delay could be that it has been bogged down by Apple's App Store approval process, which can take days or even months. Indeed, the Google Earth app for the iPhone took several days to appear in the App Store after its release. And Buzzd CEO Nihal Mehta noted that it took three months for his company's application to arrive in the App Store after it had been submitted. In other words, it's difficult for third-party developers to determine exactly when the application is going to be made available.
Perhaps from now on, when developers release an iPhone app, they'll learn to add a caveat that while the application has technically been released, it may take several days or even longer for it to actually show up in the App Store.
Update November 18, 8:20 a.m. PST: The updated version of Google Mobile App with voice search is now available from the App Store.
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