Apple faces antitrust inquiry over app store

[tatteredpotato]

Specifically over the development restrictions:


Apple's decision to block third-party toolkits and middleware -- particularly Flash -- from being used to develop iPhone and iPad apps has certainly prompted a fair amount of debate around the web, and now it sounds like Steve and the gang might face some even harsher scrutiny: a single-sourced piece in the New York Post reports that the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are currently tussling over which agency should be tasked with a potential antitrust inquiry into the matter. That would certainly make some noise in the industry, but it doesn't mean much for those of us here in reality quite yet: assuming the report is true, an inquiry would still just be the very first step -- whichever agency is ultimately put in charge would then have to launch a formal investigation and then finally file and win a lawsuit for any changes to occur. That's a timeframe measured in months, if not years.

All that said, we can see why the feds are interested: Apple's slowly moving into an ever-more dominant position in the mobile market, and forcing developers to make a hard choice about which platforms to target certainly puts the squeeze on competitors. We'll be following this one closely -- stay tuned.

http://www.engadget.com/

 

[Pliablemoose]

There's a rule of thumb in politics, if it's something that affects the congressman, logic be dammed, they'll do what they think is right.

I noticed the effect in the repeal of helmet laws after yuppies decided it was cool to ride their uber cool Harleys without helmets.

Now, I'm not so dense as to think congressmen/civil servants use iPhones (although a shitload of them do), I know their aides do.

Once they do a little digging and see that the apps really are inferior using Adobe's product, and they realize Adobe has NEVER demo'd Flash on an iPhone for Apple, and has yet to release a version of Flash for a touch-phone, guess what's gonna happen?

Dum dum dum, Adobe looks like fools...

 

[tatteredpotato]

Once they do a little digging and see that the apps really are inferior using Adobe's product, and they realize Adobe has NEVER demo'd Flash on an iPhone for Apple, and has yet to release a version of Flash for a touch-phone, guess what's gonna happen?

Dum dum dum, Adobe looks like fools...

Right but the point of capitalism is that people can make a shitty product, if the consumers want it they buy, and if they don't the product (and the platform) whithers and dies.

The only argument here is if the government has a case, and seeing as this is only an inquiry, that's just what the government is trying to decide.

The only reason Apple would ban flash is that they're afraid of it being popular, which sounds like a possible antitrust issue to me (IANAL).

 

[pm]

The direct link to the Engadget article... since it's scrolled down the page now is:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/03/apple-to-face-antitrust-inquiry-over-iphone-coding-restrictions/

This isn't about Flash on the iPhone - it's about using Flash development tools to port Flash apps to the iPhone.

There's a big difference between the two. Flash on the iPhone would let you view Flash enabled websites, using a Flash development tool would let you port your Flash-based game into an iPhone app.

The only reason Apple would ban flash is that they're afraid of it being popular, which sounds like a possible antitrust issue to me (IANAL).

There are good reasons for denying both of them beyond just Apple worrying about popularity. The fundamental reason not to allow Flash is that for it to run well, Apple would need to give approved access to more of the lower-level API's. And Apple doesn't want to do this because it starts to tie the application much tighter to a particular set of hardware. They prefer to give higher-level access so that they can effectively abstract the software running on it from the hardware underneath. This makes a certain amount of sense when you think about it from Apple's point of view, but you can also see Adobe's frustration. Regardless of your position on this though, this is not what the issue is about.

The issue is about using 3rd party development tools to write iPhone/iPad/Touch apps. There is a really good discussion - fairly objective - about the issue here:
http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2010/4/12/its-all-about-the-framework.html
There are several good reasons why Apple would not want to allow this. Specifically, Apple would then have to validate the 3rd party development tools before they could release a new iPhone OS to ensure that the changes didn't break all of the apps written with this Flash-to-iPhone compiler. If they found a problem, they would then have to either delay the release to fix the issue, or they'd have to release an OS release that would break any of the apps that use this compiler... which if it's popular could be a lot of them.

So as the author of the link above says:

This isn’t some perceived risk, I can think of incidents where Apple reverted OS changes, dumped new APIs, or was forced to committing massive engineering resources to something it did not want to do because a Must Not Break™ app vendor told them to. Apple does not want to give anyone that sort of influence over them. So ultimately, preventing Flash on the platform is about control, but is not control over the user experience of the Flash applications, or even the languages used. It is about the runtimes they bring on to the system, and Apple's control over future releases of iPhone OS.

I'm glad to hear the antitrust guys are looking into it because it deserves to be looked into. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

 

[zerocool84]

I'm glad to hear the antitrust guys are looking into it because it deserves to be looked into. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Yea that's what I was going to say. They will be able to go in more deeply than any of us ever could so only time will tell.

 

[rudeguy]

Prediction:
The federal government will officially rule that Adobe sucks and Apple is overrated anyways.

 

[theeedude]

Marketplace will decide before regulators, most likely. If Flash rocks on Android and Apple ends up losing sales because of not having it, that's going to cost it a lot more than paying antitrust fines.

 

[herkulease]

Hmmm, elections in November.

I think a nice donation to a few congressmen reelection campaign will kill this before it really does anything if at all to apple.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Marketplace will decide before regulators, most likely. If Flash rocks on Android and Apple ends up losing sales because of not having it, that's going to cost it a lot more than paying antitrust fines.

This is most likely true... Adobe knows whats at stake so they'll do whatever they can to make flash work well on Android. You can bet companies will advertise flash if it works well (and even if it doesn't).

 

[Pliablemoose]

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/05/03/qa-potential-inquiries-into-apples-rules/?mod=yahoo_hs

Looks like there's virtually no chance the feds will intervene.