Apple's Obsessive Control Over the iPhone Is Doomed

There's a delicious irony to the reports Apple (AAPL) may drop Google (GOOG) in favor of its old enemy Microsoft. The news broke last week that Jobs and Co. are considering switching to Bing as the default search engine on the iPhone. Two arch rivals from the era of closed computing are circling the wagons, hoping to cut Google out of the picture and gain market share in the burgeoning field of mobile advertising and search. But try as they might, there is one big hole Apple can't close on the iPhone. It's called the Web.

The war between the two firms first started heating up back in August when Apple rejected an app for Google Voice. Developers resigned in protest, Eric Schmidt left the board of Apple, and the FCC eventually got involved. "You know how most knife fights end," wrote Eric Schonfeld over at Techcrunch. "Both parties usually end up pretty bloody." Settle down everyone. Today Schonfeld posted screenshots of Google Voice working just fine on the iPhone, via a web based application of course. That's the absurdity of Apple's attempts to control content on the iPhone. You're selling a device with thousands of customizable applications, most drawing on web based data, and you honestly think people won't bother to change the default search engine, or find a way around?

Nick Bilton, writing for the NYT Bits blog, worried that this scrap might end up harming consumers:

Traditionally, strong competition between rival companies can be good for customers, driving down prices and bringing better services. But both Apple and Google have plenty of financial muscle to prolong the fight. Instead of a healthy competitiveness, customers could end up embroiled in format wars between applications they buy for their phones and the software they use on similar devices.