"Is Apple lying? I've been debating this for a while," said Kevin Duerr, the chief executive of Durham, N.C.-based Riverturn Inc. "My first reaction was that they're trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the FCC, especially when you see the transparency of their statements.

"It's kind of typical of Apple, not being entirely forthcoming," Duerr said. "They may not be lying when they say 'we didn't reject Google Voice, we're still pondering it,' but then why was my app, and the others, removed from the App Store?"

Duerr was reacting to to FCC inquiries over the company's reported rejection of Google Inc.'s submission of Google Voice to the App Store and the removal of several other programs that used Google's service, including Riverturn's VoiceCentral.

In its official reply to FCC questions, Apple denied it had rejected Google Voice, saying it was still studying the "potential impact on the iPhone user experience." It also claimed that VoiceCentral and two other applications fell under the same umbrella of concerns, but did not tell the FCC that it had pulled all three from the App Store the last week of July.

"I wonder if their response has not been calculated to leave them open to reversing course on Google Voice," Duerr said in an interview Saturday. "But it was certainly black and white when we were told that VoiceCentral was being removed."