Apple loves to play a monopoly when it comes to dealing with its products and services. Back in June this year, Apple played a similar game where it rejected the Google Voice app for the iPhone and removed all 3rd-party Google Voice apps from the App Store.
The reason for the rejection put forward by Apple was the interface of the Google Voice app that seemed to mimic the UI of the Phone.app on the iPhone and hence violated the App Store terms. Though even after a thorough investigation by FCC, the Google Voice app never made it back to the iPhone but this doesn't stop the developers at VoiceCentral to play the game by their own rules.
Named as the Black Swan edition, the developers at VoiceCentral have made a web application of Google Voice for iPhone which can be accessed to manage voice mails, text-messages or make calls. Here is what they have to say about it.
VoiceCentral Black Swan is the next revolution in iPhone applications. It is not tied to the App Store. It is not a web site optimized for the iPhone. It is a feature-rich weblication that enables you to view and manage your Google Voice data just like a native iPhone application.
The Good part is that users will be able to use this without the intervention of Apple since its only a rich web application and doesn't have to pass through the App Store for any approval. Also it does not require a Jailbreak.
Although there is one limitation that the Google Voice web app won't be able to access the native contact list on the user's iPhone so it will instead need to be exported to Google Voice first. The app is currently available to beta users (apply here?) but will soon be opened to all for public use.