Can AT&T Handle The iPhone?

You almost have to admire AT&T's consistency. They are consistently finding new ways to screw up almost daily now.

The latest issue involves the story we covered yesterday about apps using the Google Voice service getting pulled from Apple's App Store. In a follow-up post, we didn't exactly go out on a limb suggesting that it was AT&T and not Apple, that was responsible for the app being pulled. After all, word is that Apple VP Phil Schiller personally ushered one of those apps, GV Mobile, through the approval process initially. And today brings word that the apps were indeed removed at AT&T's request. Daring Fireball's John Gruber cites a "reliable little birdie" on the news, and we've just heard the same thing from a source as well.

While some found it very hard to believe that AT&T would be the ones behind something like this, given that it allows Google Voice apps on other phones on its network, those kind of contradictions are nothing new when it comes to AT&T with the iPhone. It's the same contradiction that prevents the SlingPlayer iPhone app from working on AT&T's network, while it works just fine on other AT&T devices. And the same one that is likely to cripple a Hulu app, if it ever gets released.