EC Drops Apple Anti-Trust Probe

The European Commission said on Saturday it has dropped its investigation into Apple’s iPhone policies, in response to recent changes in the company’s developer restrictions and cross-border repair policies.

In the spring of this year the EC launched an investigation into Apple on two areas: Apple’s policies blocking the use of certain developer tools for iPhone applications, and the company’s “country of purchase” rule, under which the repairs service was only available in the country where an iPhone was bought.

Competition shackled

The “country of purchase” rule made the exercise of warranty restrictions difficult for EU consumers who might buy a device in a country other than their place of residence, a situation that threatened to partition the market, the EC said.

The other side of the EC’s investigation concerned rules brought in by Apple in April of this year restricting the terms of its licence agreement with developers of applications for the iPhone App Store. Those rules explicitly blocked non-Apple developer tools, such as Adobe’s Flash.

The EC said it was concerned that these rules could have resulted in “shutting out competition from devices running platforms other than Apple’s,” the EC said.

The regulator said that Apple is no longer enforcing the “country of purchase” rule and has appointed independent service providers to offer iPhone warranty services across different EU member states.

The EC also noted that, as of early September, Apple has relaxed its restrictions on developers, making it easier for applications to be accepted into the App Store. The new rules allow the use of third-party developer tools, as long as they meet certain security requirements.

“We are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code,” Apple said in announcing the changes. “This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”

Apple also said it would begin publishing its Store Review Guidelines online.

Investigation closed

“In light of these policy changes, the Commission intends to close the investigations into these matters,” the Commission said in a statement.

Commission vice president in charge of competition policy, Joaquín Almunia, said the changes show that the Commission’s actions can have a positive and short-term effect.

“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,” he stated.

The Commission’s investigation followed a similar probe reportedly launched by the US Federal Trade Commission, although this has not been confirmed by the FTC.