Hey, this KoolAid tastes a little sour.

Okay, I know I drank the Apple KoolAid a while back (although etymologically the correct reference is to FlavorAid), but Apple is thinking less different these days and more capricious, frustrating, and in some cases the evil they always claimed they weren't.

Their deal with the devil has repeatedly screwed the innovation and freedom the iPhone promised (and admittedly, largely delivers). The devil in this tale, as it usually is in iPhone discussion, is AT&T.

AT&T service is almost universally identified as the weakest if not crippling feature of the iPhone. Their "more bars in more places ads," usually filmed in SF, makes San Franciscans want to take to their PR and service departments with a sharpened axe. AT&T service is almost ubiquitously crap in San Francisco. Always has been. (Cingular was fine, until AT&T bought them and shut down their towers instead of combining coverage).

While Apple seems fine standing up to record labels and dictating terms for the iTunes Music Store, they appear to cover to the whim of AT&T in restricting what can and can't be on the iPhone.

The SlingPlayer works fine over 3G and Edge on other phones and other platforms using AT&Ts network. Reports agree that AT&T feared the popularity of the SlingPlayer for the iPhone and so required Apple to require SlingMedia to cripple it's player for the iPhone, making it work ONLY over WiFi. Large crowds of iPhone users have crashed AT&T voice and data services before, which to me does not say that Apple should hobble their own innovation, but that AT&T should improve their service to a reliable level or Apple should switch to someone who has (in my head I keep seeing Verizon's ads with their large and reliable network). SlingPlayer is allowed other smartphones on the AT&T network, just not iPhones.

Then iPhone 3.0 came out, but many of the nifty new innovations aren't available in the U.S., because AT&T can't get their shit together (what?! Still no MMS for the iPhone?).

Now it seem that Apple is screwing their own customers again because apps like Google Voice might be too much for AT&T's network (again, allowable on AT&T's network if you use any other smartphone) or compete with AT&T's inferior model or services.

So much so the DOJ is considering anti-competitive investigation.

Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core (Tech Crunch)
GV Mobile and Voice Central pulled from App Store (TUAW)
Apple Screws Google Over 'Latitude' iPhone App (Wired)
Could Apple's Google Voice Rejection Draw DOJ Scrutiny? (Channel Web)
Google Voice becomes persona non grata on App Store (Ars technica)

Perhaps the best take so far—and by that I mean clear and concise, is from LifeHacker: Bad Apple: An Argument Against Buying an iPhone

Apple just rejected the Google Voice iPhone application from App Store distribution, the most recent in a long line of questionable moves, and the message is clear: If you want a device that won't lock you out of innovation, skip the iPhone.

The more humorous/cathartic rant is at Gizmodo: Apple's Chickenshit Approval Process Has Gone Too Far

What happened to Think Different? (other than dropping the grammatically correct -ly)