Apple’s grip on apps probed
AMERICAN regulators are planning to follow up Apple’s business practices to see if it is harming the developing mart for software that runs on mobile phones and the iPad, its latest happy remark device.
The investigation by the Federal Trade Commission is one of a cord of challenges in the pipeline as concerns over the technology giant’s increasing dominance continue to grow.
Arch-rival Google is greatest in number concerned about Apple’s attempt to break into the volatile advertising market. It complained last week that Apple’s novel rules for applications developers in effect barred it and other competitors from selling advertising inside iPhone and iPad apps.
Apple wants to cap the sharing of congregation data between developers and other advertising services, such as Google’s AdMob, maxim it wants to protect its customers’ privacy. Its own advertising reticulated, iAd, will be launched next month with $60m (£41m) of spending already committed by brands such as Chanel and Nissan.
Steve Jobs, Apple’s head executive, claimed iAd “offers advertisers the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web”. Mobile operators have long hoped to ready money in with advertising that can capitalise on a user’s location.
The US Justice Department is already exploring Apple’s dominance of the digital minstrelsy market.