Unless you’ve been under a rock, no doubt this week you’ve heard about the ongoing shenanigans between Apple, AT&T, and applications utilizing Google Voice. Then the FCC entered the fold. Then AT&T responded to the FCC, and effectively through Apple under the bus. Exciting times. It doesn’t look like things may be all puppy dogs, fluffy clouds and rainbows for the iPhone companies right now. One thing is for sure, though, consumers and developers alike are fuming. How is the backlash going to play out? Is this going to ripple into other industry “game changers” within the current wireless/telecom and mobile application ecosystems? Will folks begin to — gasp! — stray from their iPhones bit by bit and move to Android (or other platforms) as more handsets come out next year? Is this all simply much adieu about nothing?
Let’s take a some time to look back at the events of this week, while highlighting some more of Gear Diary’s best.
Oh, Steve…
Mr. Jobs and the Cupertino gang (along with Apple’s lawyers) have probably had better weeks. It kinda throws a damper on your weekend when the FCC has you in it’s sights for pulling apps out of your own store (never mind, they were previously approved and it’s rather murky as to what features are duplicated now, versus a few weeks ago). Then your flagship product’s exclusive carrier tells the FCC that they have no say in what you do with your app store. We’ve certainly not seen the last of this particular drama unfold. It will be interesting to see what the next move by these key players will be in the coming weeks. Until then, you may have yet another reason to just go ahead and jailbreak that iPhone and install what you want — just don’t impact the network 
It’s Not Always About The iPhone..is it?
So while the big news of the week was iPhone-centric, Doug spotted some pretty nice updates for the Pre. Let’s hope WebOS evolves (and developers work to expand Palm’s currently limited library of applications) to give consumers more choice — and functionality. Unlike another smartphone, looks like the Pre could get some positive press if they don’t mess around with Skype or Google Voice apps on their platform. Hopefully, Sprint (and Verizon, when they get the Pre next year) are taking notes.
Note To Self: Don’t Mess With High Schoolers
Jeff Bezos is probably happy Apple’s stepping in it this week, as it takes a little heat off Amazon’s ongoing Kindle-gate problems. Unfortunately, removing your ebooks from customers devices — especially one High Schooler, whose extensive notes were rendered unusable after you removed that book from his Kindle — hasn’t worked out so well. Now Justin Gawronski has done what any scorned customer does in this situation: he’s suing Amazon.
Microsoft + Yahoo = Zzzzzzzzz
Hey, it finally happened. Microsoft has teamed with Yahoo. Now, does anyone still care?
It’s been a rough week for techies. Here are some Giveaways to make it a little better
Take some time and enter giveaways from LogMeIn and the HP/MS Back-to-School contest.
