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VentureBeat did a bang-up job at making sense of the Apple/Google/AT&T sniping over Google Voice:

Google Voice lets you use a single phone number to receive calls on multiple phones and reach your voicemail. It also lets you send free text messages and make international calls for two cents — features that would jeopardize AT&T’s traditional revenue streams. So there was a ruckus when Apple inexplicably didn’t list it in the app store and then went further to delete similar applications last month, prompting an FCC inquiry.

VentureBeat also reports that in a letter to the FCC, Apple states that Google Voice would “alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality.”

This reads like the understatement of the year. Free texting? 2 cent/min International phone calls? One phone number for everything? Ask yourself, is this something you would take for a test-drive? I think most of us would and it’s no surprise that Apple feels, well … threatened.