It appears that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating is taking a close look at if Apple abused its power when it banned Adobe Flash and other tools for creating iPhone apps.
Adobe didn’t like the move, so it complained to the government that excluding Flash on the Apple iPhone and iPad could hurt its business. The good folks over at Wired used a Freedom of Information Act to request the filing of Adobe’s official complaint to the governmental agency. The response indicates that the federal agency is investigating the issue.
The publication was told that the records were exempt from the FOIA request because “disclosure of that material could reasonably be expected to interfere with the conduct of the Commission’s law enforcement activities.”
In an open letter, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that Adobe Flash is not right for the iPhone, iPad and iOS devices because it’s a resource hog and it’s a proprietary standard. He also expressed concerns that Flash-to-iPhone compilers would leave critical parts of the Apple iPhone ecosystem out of the company’s control, which he hates.
A cynic can also easily point out that having Flash on an Apple iPhone or iPad eliminates the need for a lot of apps. A Flash-enabled iPhone would be able to get much of the content that exists in the Apple App Store via the web.
Adobe is also bringing its Flash technology to nearly every other mobile platform and we’re just starting to see this with Android 2.2. The early builds on the Nexus One seemed to work well but we’ve yet to see how it works on devices like the Motorola Droid or EVO 4G.
If Adobe can provide a good Flash experience on Android and other platforms, the lack of this on the iOS devices could be a major flaw. We’ll see how this pans out.
[Via Wired]