Apple Backlash Starts As Techcrunch Founder Dumps iPhone

Michael Arrington, the founder of one of the most influential tech website, has just announced that he is abandoning the iPhone and AT&T after two years of happy cohabitation.

He reveals how his love with Apple iconic phone went pear-shaped after a slew of issues convinced him that after all, there might be a better device out there.

Arrington said that the final straw that pushed him over the edge came after the Google Voice fiasco (at least as far as AT&T and Apple are concerned), that on top of "routinely dropped calls" and the lack of AT&T network coverage.

Why does Michael Arrington's opinion count? Well, Techcrunch has more than 3.3 million RSS readers and more than one million followers on Twitter and there is a growing voice of discontent that threatens to derail the iPhone's success.

Apple might not feel it but a number of iPhone users are dissatisfied with the way they are being treated either by the company itself or their network partners. A few of us in the office tried to upgrade their iPhone 3G to the latest 3GS and were met with a brick wall or a barrage of often nonsensical decisions.

Some developers as well as starting to feel that Apple could turn worse, much worse than Microsoft when they want to. Microsoft doesn't tell you what to code or how to code, Apple does.

My6sense says that Apple's review and approval process still feels like a frustrating black box. Spotify is on the verge of being rejected by Apple as it would be a too-strong competitor for iTunes and Google has already been dumped by Apple twice (Voice and Latitude).

And Kevin Duerr, the chief executive of Riverturn Inc, provides with a very disturbing insight on how the approval process takes place within Apple. This is causing even this self-confessed Apple Fanboi to start losing faith in the platform.

There are also several observers who are questioning Apple's "application dictatorship" strategy when it comes to iPhone. The App store might be a runaway success, Michael Scalisi of PC World says, but " but its heavy-handed control is ridiculous".