• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 18, 2009

When the Federal Communications Commission asked Apple why it had blocked Google's voice app from the iPhone store, Apple insisted that the app had not been definitively rejected.

"Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it," the company said last month in a letter to the FCC.

Now it has come to light that Google was under a different impression. In its response to the FCC -- filed last month but only fully unveiled today -- Google telecom counsel Richard Whitt said that Apple did indeed nix the Google voice app, which allows users to send SMS messages and make cheap international phone calls.

The company said that on July 7, Apple's Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, told Google's Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, that Apple was rejecting Google voice because it "duplicated the core functionality of the iPhone."

Apple also told the FCC it was concerned that Google's voice app would disable the iPhone's visual voice mail and replace its text-messaging feature.

Regardless of what terminology is used to characterize Apple's decision, Google's voice app remains unavailable at the iPhone app store.