14 DAY TRIAL // We've all heard and been delighted by Google's Voice Search application, which is a great feature and, at the same time, another development the search giant can pride itself on. Moreover, the working standards of this service are not in any way questioned by anyone. Actually, any accusation that might be brought against it concerns a much more severe “crime,” whose consequences have been recognized by Google, but not the accusations themselves.
As Apple's Erica Sadun and John Gruber are implying, this voice recognition search tool does not “sync” exactly with the iPhone's SDK standards, making for an unfair competition between Google and other companies that have developed such technologies.
Actually, the facts are not very clear to us regular users, mostly because, to a certain extent, they involve technical details and information that we do not have access to, or do not understand very well. In other words, Apple is saying that the proximity sensor should be used only to turn the display on and off when the device nears or is backed away from the face. Google's application, however, makes more use of the proximity sensor, allowing it to also tell the application when it should start listening to voice search commands, and to give audible prompts to assist while searching. These extra capabilities of the proximity sensor have been developed, again according to Apple, with the use of private APIs, which were not included in the iPhone SDK.
Even though Google has admitted that Apple is correct in its observation regarding the proximity sensor's capabilities, it has not made any comments regarding the involved private APIs to which Apple is referring to. Some outside sources claim that the “defendant” did use undocumented APIs, which should not be used in the development of such a technology, but again, no comment whether the APIs in question are the same to those Apple is referring.
As of now, there is no information available as to whether Apple will let this accusation slide or whether it will back it up with facts. However, worst case scenario, Google will have to recall its latest application from the App Store, and rewrite it in order to meet the given conditions.