Clearly, Apple dominates a lot of the innovative space for new devices. Their iPhone has sold over 50 million units in 3 years and their new iPad has already sold over 1 million. They have drawn flocks of developers even though they have a reputation for being difficult to get approval from through their app store. Their iTunes store has harnessed the new share-ability of music that is what the industry has to deal with in the modern age. Oh, and they make computers, too.

They make a great set of products and seem to either create or dominate a market when they feel like it. But are they violating anti-trust laws by requiring that developers and programmers use their tools to build things for their products? Some say yes, some no.

And now it seems that the regulators are thinking about getting in on the action. And it may have everything to do with how vocal and visible Steve Jobs is about his aversion to Flash. Ask Mr. Jobs why his products don’t support Flash and you will hear something about the memory it takes to run Flash and the drain on battery life. You may ask youself, as I do, why Apple doesn’t just provide batteries that can handle Flash, as it is so ubiquitous on the web. And you may, as I have, come to the conclusion that Apple simply isn’t interested in supporting Flash for market reasons. But does that constitute a violation of anti-trust laws?

"What they're (Apple) doing is clearly anticompetitive ... They want one superhighway and they're the tollkeeper on that superhighway.” -- David Balto, former FTC policy director.

Jobs makes the same allegation about Flash, calling it "closed and proprietary" in an open letter criticizing the company last week. Jobs and Apple do not allow developers to use Flash to build apps for the new iPhone or for the iPad. So is this just a couple of techie guys prancing around with their egos on a protest sign or do they both make legitimate points that will have to be played out in the market?

"For us and the whole developers community, it really locks us into a single platform.” -- Michael Chang, chief executive of mobile ad network Greystripe.

According to Chang, creating an app for the Apple platform could cost around $75,000 and creating the same app again for other platforms essentially doubles the cost. But is that just a pain in the butt or is it violating anti-trust laws? I have to say, without an in-depth knowledge of anti-trust laws, it seems more like a pain in the butt, not so much illegal.

These are all products that you can choose to build an app on or not. Just because Apple has a large piece of the market and that makes it more expensive for people to build apps doesn’t mean the same thing as Apple saying you CAN’T build an app for another platform- you just have to build the same app twice. Pain in the butt- not illegal. "For a small or medium-sized company, it becomes a real financial issue, and that's how it becomes anticompetitive,” says Chang. Maybe so- but again, not so much illegal.

Photo Credit:Lee Bennett