...No, what finally put me over the edge is the Google Voice debacle.
Most of you wont know what Im talking about, so Ill explain.
Google Voice is a call management service that lets you determine what calls get through to you based on whos calling and what time of day it is, among other factors. It has amazing features, like automatically transcribing all your voicemails. And you can forward calls to any other phone easily and automatically. Heres an overview of the service if you arent familiar with it.
Ive always wanted to use Google Voice but theres a big switching cost - changing your phone number. Too many people have that phone number and use it to call in great stories. Theres no way Im giving that up. And theres another problem with Google Voice. When you make outbound calls from a phone, it (obviously) doesnt use your Google Voice phone number, so recipients dont know its you calling. Those were two hurdles I wasnt willing to jump over.
But now Google is planning on rolling out number portability, so I can move my mobile phone number to Google. None of my friends, family or contacts have to store a new number.
That still leaves the problem of outbound calls, though. I can move my mobile number to Google and then get a new iPhone account, but outbound calls wont be identified because they are on the new number. Google has a solution for that too, though. They are releasing apps for a variety of handsets that effectively take over the native dialer, address book and call log. Problem solved. I can use any phone I like, or a bunch of phones, and just choose the one that makes sense at any time. I never have to be tied to a carrier and their restrictive contracts again.
Or so I thought. Apple and AT&T are now blocking the iPhone version of the Google Voice app. Why? Because they absolutely dont want people doing exactly what Im doing - moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.
So I have to choose between the iPhone and Google Voice. Its not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Google isnt forcing the decision on me, Apple and AT&T are. So I choose to work with the company that isnt forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, thats Google...