Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Adobe regarding their ongoing battle with Apple, the feds are stepping in to figure out whether or not Apple's new programming policy is in violation of antitrust law. The new programming policy restricts developers from using any outside third party tools to create Apps for the iPad and iPhone.

Excerpt:

"A key question facing federal regulators is whether Apple hurts competition by forcing software developers to choose between designing apps that can run only on the iPhone and iPad and those that can run on rival devices such as Google Inc.'s Android phones and Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry.

Apple's new policy, which was announced in April along with changes to the iPhone's operating system, has raised concerns for Adobe, which includes Flash as part of a package of software tools sold to professional designers and Web developers. Although Apple's decision to ban Flash limits what its iPhone and iPad can do, the popularity of the devices has led many software developers to design apps without the format."

Apple has long since been an opponent of FLASH, a popular product of Adobe used in the creation of online media such as games, videos, and animated websites. We'd have to agree with them. FLASH causes more problems than it solves and frequently crashes mobile devices. We think that foregoing flash does not limit what devices and websites can do. Apple is reinforcing the fact that there are more efficient ways to achieve the same results as using FLASH would provide without the headaches FLASH causes. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

www.newser.com/article/d9fg5ts01/federal-regulators-to-look-at-new-apple-policy-on-programming-tools-for-iphone-ipad-apps.html