Ron Schenone

Apple – Is There An Antitrust App For That?

Posted by on May 3, 2010 | 7 Comments

Apple may face some of the same investigation by the FTC or DOJ that has previously been reserved for the likes of companies like Microsoft. In the past Apple has been protected by these governmental agencies, but now it might be Apple who is going to be investigated.  It seems that there is some question if Apple can restrict app developers in using only Apple tools to develop apps. It seems that regulators are now trying to figure out which agency should handle the investigation.

One article states:

An inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean action will be taken against Apple, which argues the rule is in place to ensure the quality of the apps it sells to customers. Typically, regulators initiate inquiries to determine whether a full-fledged investigation ought to be launched. If the inquiry escalates to an investigation, the agency handling the matter would issue Apple a subpoena seeking information about the policy.

Officials at both the Justice Department and FTC declined comment. Apple did not return calls seeking comment.

The threat of Apple being the subject of an investigation would be a remarkable turnabout for a company that has long seen itself as being outside the establishment, and one that has egged on antitrust officials to blunt the momentum of larger rivals.

I personally believe that Apple has a right, and a duty, to require app developers to use its own tools. What good would it be to have apps that either didn’t work properly or caused problems with other apps? I think that Apple is trying to protect itself and its customers.

I don’t think an investigation by either the FTC or DOJ will have any effect on Apple.

Comments welcome.

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  • http://justenrobertson.com Justen

    Why do you assume that using Apple dev tools makes the apps any more secure, stable, or compatible? All they really need to do is release an SDK and let people develop on their IDE of choice. You may not be into programming in which case I forgive you the misconception, but it really doesn’t matter what app is used to write code. You could write it in notepad and run it through a compiler if you wanted to. IDEs just make life easier.

  • Isaac Taylor

    I may be slightly biased in that I generally vouch for Microsoft, but this seems rather unfair to me. It IS quite obvious that apps will work better with Apple systems if they are designed by Apple. There are numerous accounts of third-party applications and programs causing trouble (I mean, look at all the issues Windows has accumulated with its incredible amount of compatibility!).

    With the government stepping in to “break-up” the app development in a sense, it shows that government really doesn’t understand the implications of software development. What blows me away is how the government is looking into something as (truly) trivial as this when we have only a few large financial institutions carrying the national economy, and a communications industry dominated by AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Wanna talk about lack of competition, Feds? Look at this: only 6 banks in this country now issue over 2/3 of all credit cards! Perhaps this is why they are allowed to charge usury interest rates of 25-30%.

    I could go on and on, but this is just a thought…

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hello Issac,
      Good points.
      Thanks for sharing this with us.

  • Spike

    The new Apple restrictions are undoubtedly designed to lock in both developers and customers. The restrictions are much broader and more intrusive than a ban on cross-platform tools: They ban source code in any non-Apple-supported language!
    I’m a software engineer, with one app published for the iPhone/iPod, and a new app in development for the iPad. On the day the new restrictions were announced, I was in the process of evaluating and selecting a high-level language to use inside my app: Lua, Nu, or perhaps something else. This has been a common software engineering practice for decades: Write the engine and/or framework of a complex app in a high-perfomance language, then write the thousands of lines of high-level, non-performance-sensitive logic in a higher-level language. (Google Adobe Lightroom Lua.) With the new restrictions, that whole approach becomes ‘illegal’ – which just means my app will either take more time & work to write, or be less capable. Or does anybody seriously believe Objective-C is the MOST productive language in the world? Seriously?
    Big, fat, slow, defective apps don’t come from tools – they come from developers who are willing to ship big, fat, slow defective apps. If you believe in efficient, responsive, robust, well-designed apps, you do what’s necessary to create those apps. To me that shouldn’t involve letting Steve Jobs dictate what programming language you code in. Using Apple’s tools in no way guarantees good apps (Sample the App Store at random – does this even need to be said??) and using other languages can hinder *or help* create a great app: It’s determined by the developer, not the language; There is no cause-and-effect relationship. Apple is trying to lock in developers, thereby their applications, and thereby, eventually, the customers, while handwaving the DOJ.