Federal antritrust regulators are taking a keen interest in changes Apple made to its iPhone developers agreement, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting.
WSJ:
U.S. antitrust enforcers are taking a keen interest in recent changes that Apple Inc. made to its licensing agreement with iPhone application developers and are likely to open a preliminary investigation into whether the company’s actions stifle competition in mobile devices, according to people familiar with the situation.
However, it looks like this may have more to do with Google than Adobe. The key issue could be Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising system, rather than section 3.3.1, which requires developers to use Apple’s programming tools and forbids third-party cross comilers:
Apple’s new language forbidding apps from transmitting analytical data could prevent ad networks from being able to effectively target ads, potentially giving Apple’s new iAd mobile-advertising service an edge, executives at ad networks say.
One wireless-advertising executive said he was contacted a few weeks ago by an official from the FTC who wanted to talk about how the mobile-ad industry works, the Apple developer agreement and how it could affect the executive’s business.
The FTC has also taken an interest in iAd in the context of the agency’s investigation of Google Inc.’s $750 million purchase of mobile-ad company AdMob Inc. Several developers said they have been contacted by the FTC about the Google-AdMob probe, with two saying they were told that the agency was also looking into the iAd service.
AdMob has also had conversations with the FTC about Apple’s clout in the mobile market, according to a person familiar with the matter. This person said the conversations were part of the FTC’s review of the acquisition.
Reuters’ report echoes the WSJ’s, noting that the FTC and DoJ are deciding which agency should launch the probe. Reuters also quotes a disgruntled mobile advertising executive, who says Apple’s new rules create lock in:
“For us and the whole developers community, it really locks us into a single platform,” said Michael Chang, chief executive of mobile ad network Greystripe, of Apple’s rules.
Chang said a basic iPhone app might cost $75,000 to build on Flash, and a few thousand dollars more to convert it to work on Google Inc’s Android mobile platform. But with the new restrictions, a developer must spend another $75,000 to build the app from the ground up for a non-Apple platform.
“For a small or medium-sized company, it becomes a real financial issue, and that’s how it becomes anticompetitive,” he said.
In his recent Thoughts on Flash open letter, Steve Jobs argued that third-party programming tools result in “sub-standard” apps.
And as one pundit noted to Reuters, Apple places no restrictions on Web apps, which by definition are cross-platform.
