European Commission probes Apple’s walled garden

The European Commission (EC) has reportedly joined the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in probing Apple’s controversial policies regulating mobile software developers. 

An anonymous source told the New York Post that the comprehensive investigation could last at least another six months.

As TG Daily previously reported, the FTC recently kicked off a probe of Apple’s decision to ban developers from using external tools to develop software for mobile devices.

The initial FTC probe was likely prompted by an official Adobe complaint filed over Apple’s continued and heavy-handed Flash ban.

As expected, an utterly unrepentant Steve Jobs continues to maintain that Flash is unfit for a modern, mobile era of computing.

“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short,” Jobs claimed in an open letter.

“The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.”