Apple Facing Federal Probes Over Section 3.3.1 of iPhone SDK?
Uh-oh: Apple might have some explaining to do with the Feds over their decision to shut out third party development tools in the new iPhone 4.0 SDK.9to5Mac is reporting that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission might “bring a heap of trouble down†on Apple over their decision to lock out third party development tools such as Adobe’s controversial Flash-to-iPhone compiler. According to a New York Post article on Monday, the two U.S. Federal organizations are “locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple’s new policy.â€As you’ll recall, the problem stems from Apple’s decision to refine section 3.3.1 of their iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, forbidding the use of non-Apple tools to create iPhone applications. Specifically, that section reads:"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs" -- which targets a function of Adobe’s new Creative Suite 5 that allows Flash applications to be easily converted to iPhone apps, although it also takes aim at other similar third-party tools as well.The bottom line is that Apple wants developers to use its own SDK to write iPhone apps, claiming that it will provide the best end experience for the user. Federal regulators are likely interested in whether enacting such a heavy-handed practice is aimed at killing competition “by forcing developers to make a budget-driven choice between development platforms.â€9to5Mac also notes that it’s too early to know how any inquiry will pan out, but they expect that if a full investigation is launched, Apple will be hit with subpoenas, which is probably not what they were expecting when they revised the SDK rules in the first place.
http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apple_facing_federal_probes_over_section_331_iphone_sdk
