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Google’s new voice activated mobile search application has been the most talked about iPhone application by far. With very good speech recognition on top of Google’s large database, it’s perfect for the iPhone. It even has that cool feature where it can sense the motion when you put the phone up to your ear, and then the proximity of your head, that allows it to know when you are about to speak. But there is something very, very fishy about that. In the words of Daring Fireball, “There is no public API in the iPhone SDK for using the proximity sensor in this way.” So, how did Google do it?

Although this isn’t in the public API, there is a command line string utility that can access this type of programming. However, using this undocumented workaround is against the iPhone SDK Guidelines. Therefore, Google’s application is also against the guidelines. Again, as Daring Fireball puts it, “A developer that plays by the rules cannot do what Google is doing.” So, what do you have to say to that, Google? Has Google made a secret, under-the-table deal with Apple, or are they simply breaking the rules?

Via [Daring Fireball]