Apple targeted for antitrust?

The US Federal Government has reportedly been poking around Apple's requirement that software developers only use its — or neutral — programming tools.

The New York Post reported that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have been pondering an antitrust inquiry into Section 3.3.1 in Apple's iPhone 4.0 software developer kit licence agreement.

The section reads:

3.3.1 — applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++ or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++ and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (eg, applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Read more of "Apple in antitrust crosshairs? If so, Jobs' Flash rant makes more sense" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.