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Could an Antitrust Suit Scare Apple into Changing iPhone SDK?
In what's sure to cause no less than three solid months of daily rumors and several thousand highly repetitive tweets, the Department of Justice and the FTC have apparently begun discussing Apple, and whether or not they should open a full antitrust investigation over the recent changes to the iPhone SDK -- specifically how third-party development tools like Adobe Flash CS5 have been banned from use.
At least, that's what somebody "familiar with the matter" told the New York Post, who reported the discovery last night. According to the Post's source, the DOJ and FTC are actually negotiating at this point to see which of the two offices will actually stage an inquiry to look into the matter more closely. In other words, the U.S. Government has decided that Apple's behavior is suspect, but it hasn't yet decided whether or not to commit resources to find out if the company has actually broken antitrust laws.
The question of the hour now is whether or not a looming antitrust suit could actually scare Steve Jobs into changing the iPhone SDK -- and allow Flash-built apps into the App Store. It should be noted that an inquiry is not an investigation, and an investigation is not a ruling. The FTC could spend an entire year poking around Apple's filing cabinets and could very well come back and report that no rules have been broken at all.
Of course, they could decide that Apple has stepped over the line -- but it wouldn't happen any time soon.
Jobs has gone to great lengths in recent weeks to make his stance -- which is Apple's de facto stance -- extremely clear regarding third-party development software. He was more than forthcoming when it came to his thoughts on Adobe and Flash, which he posted to Apple's own front page last month. After all the hard arguments he's made, does anyone really think that he's going to simply reverse his decisions and allow iPhone and iPad developers to use any software they want to create apps?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. If this supposed inquiry does take place, Apple will likely welcome it. Jobs will stand firm and Adobe's employees will all be using Android phones, while App Store consumers will continue to download apps of the same quality that's now expected.
If the DOJ comes down and declares that Apple must change the iPhone SDK, it will have been so many months since this all started that nobody will even remember that they once wanted to make a crappy cheap Flash game and port it over to work on an iPhone in the first place.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsSebastian AnthonyMay 4th 2010 6:42PM
Opening with a paragraph-length sentence gets a big, juicy thumbs-up from ME.
Matthew RogersMay 4th 2010 7:19PM
Yeah I think I brought that one all the way to the edge ;)
aMIGA_dUDEMay 5th 2010 5:31AM
If DoJ or FTC do nothing there good chance that Europe will!
Do say haven't been warned. Just look what happend to Microsoft IE and it drop in usage and that manly down to Europe.
jonathanMay 5th 2010 6:10PM
Universal Pictures announced today that it intended contacting the FTC concerning Disney's refusal to allow ticket holders to Universal's Theme Parks to enter Disney Parks without further charge.
"It is clear to us that Disney is abusing a monopoly. It clearly has no competition in the Disney-themed Park Market, especially in those places where it has already built Parks," said sources close to Universal who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. "Our aim is just to give the best overall experience, so we approached Disney with the idea of our Open Ticket(TM) System. Pay once, preferably in one of our, less-popular, parks, and get in Free everywhere else. Everyone loves a freebie, no? And, of course, the customer wins!" continued the person not wishing to be identified as a spokesman. "Did we tell you, it's Open. That's good, no?"
When pressed, however, he admitted that Universal had not in fact contacted Disney. "They're a monopoly, dude. We already know what they're gonna say. Are you stupid or what? We're just gonna announce this and get a lot of bad press for them."
And when asked why Disney should accept that people pay money to Universal to get into their parks, the [un]spokesman replied, "Look, everybody knows it's about the rides, and the food markets, and the stands, no? Once you get them inside, you just milk 'em. I mean, we're doing Disney a favor here. They should pay us for sending 'em people."
Steven P. Jobs, a major shareholder in Disney was not available for comment. Cory Doctorow, a popular writer who also has this sort of strange obsession with Disney theme parks as well as the word 'free' [as in freedom] said, "What..!!??"
Hmmm...
Matthew RogersMay 5th 2010 6:25PM
Also, Disney won't allow Universal to open up their own stands inside the park, which is just plain mean.
alex danteMay 7th 2010 12:49AM
If the only Flash games you're seeing are cheap and crappy, you're not looking hard enough. Civilization Wars, Infectonator, Creeper World: all fantastic games I've played in the last few months that I would _love_ to be able to play on my iPod touch.
Translating one abstraction to another is just what computers do. It shouldn't matter if I write ActionScript or Objective-C as long as the compiler produces the correct output. Any claim otherwise flies in the face of decades of computer science tradition. Unfortunately, Jobs is amazingly good at convincing the ignorant that their ignorance is a virtue, so they're happy to accept his sociopathic rantings at face value.
Matthew RogersMay 7th 2010 1:17AM
True, there are good flash games out there, but a handful out of thousands doesn't make it a good idea to allow all of them. The App Store is already fairly overcrowded with cheaply made apps, so try to imagine how bad it would get if any 13 year old could convert a piece of flash into an app. It's not a pretty thought.
Jack ViersMay 7th 2010 2:14PM
@Matthew Rogers: So you are in favor of a company telling you, as a consumer, what is and is not worth purchasing and enjoying on equipment you own?
Or, as a developer, having a company that does not employ you determine your software development lifecycle and language of development?
Let the market decide which apps are viable commodities and which apps are not.
Matthew RogersMay 8th 2010 12:35AM
I don't think Apple is telling the consumer what is and is not worth purchasing and enjoying on equipment they bought. I think that they're telling a handful of developers that they can't use a function in a piece of Adobe software that was specifically made to convert Flash apps into iPhone apps.
You say let the market decide, but a laissez faire iPhone app market would not survive. Even with Apple's so-called strict controls in place, the App Store is flooded with bad apps -- cheaply made, poorly written, and unoriginal.
As for me, I recently traded my iPhone 3GS for an older model BlackBerry Bold 9000 to a guy in a Seattle parking lot. So don't mistake my advocacy for blind fanboyism.