MacApper Exclusive: Newber Developer Gives up on App Store
The idea is rather simple: a second business line for your iPhone that can route calls to your phone or to a nearby land line. In reality, Apple seems to not want to touch this application with a proverbial ten foot pole. The ticker on Newber’s website says they’ve waited 144 days for Apple to respond to their submission to the App Store.
Today, Eric Thomas, CEO of Freedom Voice, confided that the company is pulling back support from the App Store after months of no response from Apple. The company will no longer seek iPhone App Store acceptance for now. “I am disappointed,” says Thomas. The company plans to integrate the Newber concept into their new FreedomVOICE IQ product, a hosted PBX phone system that is gaining traction for the company.
Just last week, Market Strategist for FreedomVOICE Systems, Nick Gowdy, told me the Newber team stands ready to respond to Apples comments, but none of come. In fact, Apple hasn’t even registered the dummy account to test the application. 150+ days of silence from Apple for an application that, according to the company, does not break any of the rules set up by Apple. “We are frustrated,” says Gowdy. One might ask, “what gives Apple?”
What is Newber?
Newber, a brand of FreedomVOICE Systems, a virtual office phone system provider, accomplishes 3 things for the iPhone user: the ability to make and receive calls where AT&T has spotty or no reception; the ability to offload a call when your phone’s battery is nearly drained; the ability to take calls without burning your AT&T minutes.
Newber will create a second phone number for your iPhone that routes through their network. This second line is customizable in a manner similar to Google’s Grand Central. Users can control when they wish the calls to ring or go straight to voice mail. For users who seek both a work phone and a personal phone, this solution could be attractive. The original iPhone number would, of course, still work just as it did before this application installation.
Calls to a users Newber line could have been routed to other numbers, such as a land line. Users simply enter the number they wish the calls transferred to, it is that simple. Additionally, Newber made use of the iPhone 3G’s GPS and automatically switch calls to the predefined number when you enter that lines proximity. For example, users can choose to have their Newber calls forwarded to their work phone when at the office. Arriving at work would trigger the line forward just as leaving the office would transfer calls back to your iPhone.
Another feature of the application is one touch tree dialing system. This feature allows users to select a contact to reach and the phone begins dialing the first number listed for the contact. Should the call roll to voice mail, the second number listed is automatically dialed. An example of this would be phoning your contact office line, then upon getting voice mail, trying the contact’s mobile number next; all without any added input from you.
Newber was priced at $5 per month plus 2 cents per minute. International calls varied by country in price from $1.68 per minute to the Falkland Islands to $.0266 to China. Calls placed on your Newber line from your iPhone burned both Newber minutes and iPhone AT&T minutes.
150 days of frustration
The team at Newber was super excited to gain admission to the iPhone developer program and were even more so when they submitted the application to Apple. In the days and weeks that followed that excitement as numbed a bit. According to Gowdy, the application, “shouldn’t be a concern” to Apple. Another application that deals with VOIP is in the same approval limbo for their application: iCall.
The team tried changing names of the application and resubmitting. They’ve changed the description and resubmitted. They’ve changed anything that could perceived as a “bad” and resubmitted. The team even tried a petition at CES and MacWorld to get Apple’s attention. All to the same end: no response from Apple.
Previously, the company had stated a jailbroken app for the iPhone might be a possibility. Thomas confirmed they’ve not made a decision on that, but went into the business case and stated it didn’t make too much sense.
Have you no decency Apple?
A point Thomas wanted to emphasize is social consciousness. How can Apple in good faith, provide no response to a developer wanting to make their device more appealing to the business crowd? Thomas said he could respect a, “no” but to offer no response, which led to a significant outlay in marketing and perhaps more importantly in time. Instead of accolades, a request from Apple to help, rewards and awards for a signigicant contribution to the iPhone’s business side, they recieved nothing.
Thomas concludes it must be a marketing move for Apple’s lack of response, “I can only think Apple wants to avoid the negative press from denying acceptance of applications like Newber.”
Thomas plans to integrate the Newber concept into their FreedomVOICE IQ, a hosted PBX solution that allows company to move away from the expensive outlay for PBX phone hardware and move to a scalable system based on VOIP. Thomas considers pulling Newber support is the right move for FreedomVOICE customers and for the company. Work on a BlackBerry version has also been halted.
The Newber app is one that leverages the iPhones assets: a phone you cannot be without for personal or business use and smart call routing fused with GPS. Here’s to hoping Apple sees it fit for approval the next time it gets the chance, as there are many of us excited to add this app to our phones. You can learn more about Newber at mynewber.com
I kind of think they sealed their fate with this statement:
“the ability to take calls without burning your AT&T minutes.”
Do you really think Apple is going to allow an app that takes away income from their phone partner, AT&T?
Still, I think it’s absolutely mind-blowing that Apple doesn’t have the common courtesy to fire off an email saying “look, your app seems cool, but we can’t allow it due to XYZ feature” or something to that effect.
The whole App Store process for developers is broken. Unfortunately, I just don’t see Apple “fixing it” anytime soon. Apparently, in their eyes it isn’t broken.
Jim – you hit the nail on the head. Have these (Newber) guys no brains at all?
The no minutes could be a claim but then why is Fring on the iPhone or any number of other VOIP apps that are also on the iPhone.
Obviously the ‘no minutes’ story is only if you are in a WiFi area. Unless they are proposing a VOIP over 3G which Apple has already said no way to (for carrier bowing reasons). The article even states that if you place a Newber call via 3G then you burn both Newber and Carrier minutes.
Other than that, its not more than a fancy number redirector, I had one such thing for years, very handy. Perhaps it is an exclusivity reason, I doubt it though.
If there is a real reason it would be related to the same issue that Podcast dude met with, its a feature they are planning.
I’d say with that in mind, the reason why they have said nothing is partly because the Podcast dude spilt the beans, that Apple was releasing (and did) podcast management, and its pretty good and via Cellular. The other part of it is that this stuff is coming for iPhone 2.0 as opposed to iPhone with 3G, which was further away and Apple would have done themselves too much damage by revealing what was coming by giving this mob a reason.
In this case, the article i’d say mentions the very reason. Google Grand Central, or something like it.
Its better for Apple to get some bad press about snubbing a developer than to give away their plans nearly a year before they want to launch it.
iCall was just approved in the App store about 30 minutes ago. Who would have guessed.