Yesterday, I called bullocks on the NY Post report that the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department were looking into initiating an antitrust suit against Apple for their changes to the license agreement to developers of the iPhone and iPad.  Today, both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters echo that report.

Let’s cut to the meat and potatoes of each article (their argument as to how Apple’s actions are anticompetitive).

Reuters: Regulators mull antitrust look at Apple

“What they’re (Apple) doing is clearly anticompetitive … They want one superhighway and they’re the tollkeeper on that superhighway,” said David Balto, a former FTC policy director.

The superhighway being their products - a smartphone and tablet - and controlling the user’s experience on the products.  I still don’t see how that is clearly anticompetitive or anything different than any number of gaming consoles.  It’d be different if they were the only smartphone out there or only tablet but they arent.

Apple said allowing third-party tools would result in “sub-standard” apps. But critics say the company is abusing its position.

“For us and the whole developers community, it really locks us into a single platform,” said Michael Chang, chief executive of mobile ad network Greystripe, of Apple’s rules.

Chang said a basic iPhone app might cost $75,000 to build on Flash, and a few thousand dollars more to convert it to work on Google Inc’s Android mobile platform. But with the new restrictions, a developer must spend another $75,000 to build the app from the ground up for a non-Apple platform.

“For a small or medium-sized company, it becomes a real financial issue, and that’s how it becomes anticompetitive,” he said.

So the argument here is that you have to do more work (i.e. expense), which can become to expensive to have your apps work on multiple different platforms and therefore it is anticompetitive.   Basically, if you’re a small company and it’s too expensive to make an app/implement your idea on a certain platform then it’s anticompetitive.  That’s just ridiculous, should Apple pay small and medium-sized companies electric bills too?

WSJ: Apple Draws Scrutiny from Regulators

The Journal’s article does raise an interesting point about the mobile ad market…

Apple’s new language forbidding apps from transmitting analytical data could prevent ad networks from being able to effectively target ads, potentially giving Apple’s new iAd mobile-advertising service an edge, executives at ad networks say.

I could see how this can be argued as anticompetitive action. 

Some developers said it would be difficult for Apple to enforce the provision about not transmitting iPhone data to the extent that the language implies. Ads inside apps are a key revenue source for developers of free or inexpensive apps.

“At the end of the day, developers need a way to make money,” said Krishna Subramanian, a co-founder of ad-exchange network Mobclix Inc.

She makes a good point.  The irony of the point is that developers will make a lot more money through Apple’s new iAd mobile-ad service than through services like Mobclix.

Final word: still don’t see an antitrust suit coming out of this.