James B. Stewart, [shooting from the hip in The New York Times][nyt]:

Apple’s use of its own mapping technology in the iPhone appears to be a textbook case of what’s known as a tying arrangement, sometimes referred to as “bundling.” In a tying arrangement, the purchase of one good or service (in this case the iPhone) is conditioned on the purchase or use of a second (Apple maps).

To the degree that tying arrangements extend the control of a dominant producer, they may violate antitrust laws.

Bullshit.

Apple is making it abundantly clear, almost embarrassingly so, that they offer many competing map platforms on iOS. Yet because Google¹ Maps isn’t available on iOS somehow Apple is breaking antitrust laws on the scale that Microsoft did with Internet Explorer?

Mail some of whatever they smoke in midtown down Austin way, wouldya?