Google’s end run around Apple’s App Store is complete: Google Voice is ready as a Web application.

iPhone owners can now get in on Google Voice with the release of a Web application.

(Credit: Google)

Owners of the iPhone and Palm’s WebOS devices can now get in on the mobile Google Voice experience with the Web app, which will run in the browsers of iPhones with the 3.0 software installed and all Palm WebOS devices, said Vincent Paquet, senior product manager at Google. The application should be available for current users of Google Voice–which is still an invitation-only service–as of Tuesday at m.google.com/voice.

Google Voice allows incoming calls to ring mobile phones, office phones, or desk phones depending on how the user sets their Google Voice profile. It also treats voice mail like e-mail, transcribing voice messages into an in-box where they can be read and deleted.

Last year Google submitted a native version of Google Voice to Apple in hopes of getting the software onto the iPhone. As most will recall, Apple and Google then entered into a semantic war of words over whether Apple rejected the application (Google’s version) or merely continues to study it (Apple’s version). Either way, the FCC got involved and Google Voice remains in App Store limbo, Paquet said.

“We haven’t had any updates regarding our native app for the iPhone, unfortunately,” Paquet said. However, now that the Web app is ready iPhone users will be able to get essentially the same experience that the native app would have delivered, although the user interface will be slightly different because the application will be running in the browser. Paquet declined to comment on whether Google plans to continue the App Store approval process with the native version.

The Web application is another sign of Google’s strong desire to encourage people to think of Web-based applications as a ready alternative to native applications. The company has spoken about its plans for Web development at length, and even plans to develop a lightweight operating system based on its Chrome browser as a sort of proof-of-concept for the Web development mindset.

My colleague Rafe Needleman did a test-drive of the new application, which you can read here.

The ongoing patent battle between Apple and Nokia escalated Friday, when Apple moved to block imports of Nokia cell phones to the U.S.

Apple made its request in a complaint filed with the International Trade Commission in Washington, an independent federal agency that examines issues including unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement. The agency will need to approve the request before it begins an investigation.

Will Nokia devices be blocked from the U.S.?

(Credit: Nokia)

In December, Nokia filed its own complaint with the USITC. In it, the Finnish company alleged that Apple infringes seven Nokia patents “in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers” and sought to ban imports of Apple’s iPhone, iPod, and MacBook products.

Responding to Apple’s latest move, Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant told Bloomberg that “Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously. However this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia’s innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007.”

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment on the filing.

Back in October, before the patent debate between the two companies moved to the trade commission, Nokia filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Delaware regarding 10 patents related to wireless handsets, which Nokia says Apple has refused to license. Every iPhone model since the original, introduced in 2007, infringes on those patents, Nokia has charged.

Apple then filed a countersuit accusing Nokia of copying technology inside the iPhone.

In November, research firm Strategy Analytics reported that Apple had surpassed Nokia in quarterly mobile phone profits, bringing in $1.6 billion from the iPhone, compared with Nokia’s $1.1 billion in cell phone profits.

Nokia’s new mobile chief, Rick Simonson, acknowledged in an interview earlier this month that 2009 had been a difficult year for the company.

“Yes, we have lost ground in the smartphone space over the past 18 months, but the decline has stopped and stablized in the second and third quarters of 2009,” Simonson told the India Times.

“The new year will see [our] recovery in smartphones with the introduction of Maemo and the stabilization of the Symbian operating system, which by the way, continues to be the platform for the largest number of smartphones, globally,” Simonson added.

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Online music provider 7digital is bringing over-the-air music downloads to recent BlackBerry phones, such as the Storm, Bold, and Tour. The rumors have been circulating for several months now. On Tuesday the company is set to launch its application–developed by DevelopIQ–on the BlackBerry App World store, as well as on the 7digital Web site.

A screenshot of the 7digital BlackBerry app.

(Credit: DevelopIQ)

After installing the free app, BlackBerry users will be able to buy and download more than 6 million songs from all four major labels and all the big independents, all in unprotected MP3 format. The app adapts automatically to the speed of the user’s connection–when connecting over a wireless data network, it will download a relatively low-quality version of the song. Then, when the user enters the range of a previously known Wi-Fi network, it will automatically–in the background–update the MP3 with a higher-quality version (320kbps in most cases).

7digital is based in the U.K. and is fairly well known in Europe–it powers the download store for free streaming service Spotify, among other partnerships–but has been relatively obscure in the United States. That’s changing Tuesday as well: the company is launching its online music store in the U.S., bringing more competition to the likes of iTunes and Amazon. Standard pricing for songs and albums will be 77 cents and $7.77 respectively, which is a play on the company’s name (although variable pricing means that some popular material will cost more). The company also offers a free digital locker service, which backs up all your downloads in case you lose them.

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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said Thursday it sold fewer BlackBerry phones than analysts had expected, and the company’s quarterly earnings were hurt by a legal settlement.

The company said earnings fell 4 percent in the second fiscal quarter due in large part to charges associated with a legal settlement.

For the quarter that ended August 29, the company said it earned $475.6 million, or 83 cents a share, compared to profits of $495.5 million, or 86 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

Revenue rose to $3.53 billion from $2.58 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected earnings of $1 a share on revenue of $3.62 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Even though sales were strong and revenue was up, RIM reported it shipped slightly fewer devices than what analysts had expected. The company said it shipped about 8.3 million BlackBerry devices during the quarter, adding about 3.8 million new subscribers. Analysts had expected the company to add about 4 million new subscribers on shipments between 8.5 million and 8.6 million.

But what really hurt the company was a charge of $112.8 million related to the settlement of a patent dispute with Visto Corp. Excluding this charge, RIM said it would have earned $588.4 million, or $1.03 per share for the quarter.

RIM said it expects revenue between $3.6 billion and $3.85 billion for the third fiscal quarter that ends November 28. And the company expects earnings per share to be in the neighborhood of between $1 and $1.08.

Analysts expect RIM to introduce a new version of its touch-screen Storm later this year on Verizon Wireless’s network. This devices is supposed to compete head to head with Apple’s iPhone. But RIM has other competitors in the touch-screen arena as it approaches he holiday season. There are also other devices, such as the Palm Pre and handsets from HTC and Motorola that use the Google Android software.

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