“Kinda tells you something about human nature, what with other companies, like Apple, employing similar tactics but getting no heat for them, because, well, its Apple, and we’ve all come to expect that from Apple, right?”

Apple gets heat in the press almost daily for their actions.  In all honesty the only company getting a free pass seems to be Amazon who is constantly abusing their standing in one market to promote things in others (dumping Kindles below cost is a clear example).

When Apple starts giving away iTunes media content for free in order to draw customers then I might be a bit more concerned about them.  But Apple cannot even make a tool that publishes in a proprietary format without getting accused of trying to extinguish the ePub format just because their format borrows from ePub, but does not claim to be ePub.

The big difference here is that Google is constant claiming “high morales, openness, fairness and ethics” but their actions do not reflect that.  Apple only claims “good business sense”.