Apple could find itself the target of either a Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission investigation, according to an unnamed source in the New York Post, over its development-tool policies that exclude products built by companies such as Adobe. A clause in the developer agreement for the recently unveiled iPhone OS 4 requires that applications be originally written in Objective-C, C++ or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine. The unnamed source offered no timetable for when the federal government might announce such an investigation is underway.
Apple may find itself under scrutiny by either the
Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission, according to an unnamed
source quoted in a May 3 article in the New York Post. The newspaper suggested
that the two agencies are "days away" from deciding which of them would pursue
an actual investigation.
The Cupertino, Calif., company finds itself a potential
target due to its new mobile-applications policy,
suggests
the article, which forbids the use of third-party development tools in the
creation of apps for Apple's App Store. Specifically,
a
clause in the developer agreement for the recently unveiled iPhone OS 4
stipulates "applications may only use Documents APIs in the manner
prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs" and that
"applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript
as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++,
and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs."
That excludes applications built with tools such as Adobe
Flash CS5, and may force developers to choose between building applications
exclusively for Apple or for a smartphone ecosystem that supports those tools.
Given the popularity of Apple's platform among developers, and the extra work
required to build multiple versions of an application for two or more different
smartphone operating systems, that choice could have an effect on those other
platforms' ability to stay competitive-at least, that's how government
officials could be thinking ahead of any public announcement.
In the wake of Apple's pronouncement, a number of companies
had taken the liberty of embracing Google Android and other platforms.
"Fortunately, the iPhone isn't the only game in town," Mike Chambers, a product
manager for Adobe,
wrote
in an April 20 posting on his official blog. "Android based phones have
been doing well behind the success of the Motorola Droid and Nexus One, and
there have been a number of Android based tablets slated to be released this
year." What's more, Chambers added, Adobe is working with Google to port Flash
Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.0 to Android devices.
On April 29, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an open letter
describing the company's reasoning behind denying Flash support for its mobile
products. In his mind at least, Flash lacked the surety, reliability and
touch-compatibility necessary for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. "Adobe has
characterized our decision as being primarily business-driven-they say we want
to protect our App Store-but in reality it is based on technology issues," he
wrote.
"Apple has decided to kill the babies before they become strong,"
Mike Sax, founder of Sax.net and an iPhone application developer,
told
eWEEK in April. "Unfortunately, they ignore ... that tools like Appcelerator, Mono and Flash are
becoming popular primarily because of developer productivity, not their
cross-platform capabilities. Apple's mobile development tool set is lacking in
developer productivity, with a unique language and no support for basic enhancements
like garbage collection."
The New York Post's source offered no firm timetable for
when the government may announce an antitrust investigation.
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