>>The European Commission over the weekend dropped its preliminary antitrust probe into Apple's (AAPL) App Store and iPhone restrictions, following the company's change to some policies.
The commission said it was able to abandon its probe following announcements by Apple that the company will relax its restrictions on the development tools for iPhone and iPad applications, as well as introduce cross European warranty repair services for the devices.
"Apple's response to our preliminary investigations shows that the commission can use the competition rules to achieve swift results on the market with clear benefits for consumers, without the need to open formal proceedings," Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.
The commission, Europe's highest antitrust body, began probing Apple for anticompetitive business practises in spring 2010. It was especially concerned that the limitation's of the warranty repair services to the country where the iPhone was bought amounted to illegal territorial restrictions within the European Union.
The commission was also investigating Apple over its decision to restrict App Store application developers to use only Apple's native programming tools, restricting developers from easily running their applications on other devices.
Apple's App Store allows iPhone and iPad users to download games, financial tools and other applications for their devices.
The laxer developer requirements are likely to end a spat between Apple and Adobe Systems Inc.(ADBE) over whether developers can use Adobe's Flash development tools for creating their applications, said Brussels based antitrust lawyers. As a result of the new guidelines developers can now run their apps on competing platforms such as Google's (GOOG) Android, as well as the Nokia (NOK) backed Symbian.
For example, videogames written in the Flash technology language can be translated into Apple-acceptable language for use on iPhones and iPads; while simultaneously be displayed for Nokia and Google smartphone users without too much extra work.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
