Would Mr. Jobs have been so quick to apologize? Perhaps not. He was famously resistant to the idea after complaints about the iPhone 4’s antenna, and the Apple “genius” manual instructs employees never to apologize for the quality of Apple technology.

Bundling its maps with the iPhone 5 may yet prove to be a strategic blunder for Apple, but it may nonetheless skirt the boundaries of the antitrust laws that tripped up Microsoft. “There’s no antitrust theory under which vertically integrating into an inferior component is considered anticompetitive,” Herbert Hovenkamp, an antitrust professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, told me. That’s because the problem is considered self-correcting by market forces. “There have been lots of complaints about tying arrangements involving inferior products. But ordinarily, incorporating an inferior product doesn’t increase your market share, because consumers leave for a better product. It’s not a promising strategy,” Professor Hovenkamp said. The danger for Apple is that customers will choose an Android phone with a superior Google Maps application rather than an iPhone.

An exception is when a monopolist does it, which is what happened with Microsoft. If a consumer used Microsoft Windows, the dominant software, Explorer was installed by default. “This arose with Microsoft because back then Explorer was considered inferior and quirky,” Professor Hovenkamp said. “But that wasn’t why it was a violation. It’s because consumers had no choice.” By contrast, Apple’s iOS isn’t the dominant smartphone operating system. Apple’s software has captured 17 percent of the global smartphone market, compared with 68 percent for Google’s Android. Apple users who want Google maps can readily switch to an Android phone. “Most tying arrangement cases have involved firms with close to 100 percent market shares,” Professor Hovenkamp noted.

The real test will be whether Apple makes rival mapping apps readily available for downloading on its iPhones. In his apology, Mr. Cook suggested that iPhone users try alternatives, and even suggested using Google maps by going to Google’s Web site. Google said it was working on a map application for the iPhone.

From an antitrust perspective, the e-books controversy is more serious. United States antitrust authorities have accused Apple of conspiring with major book publishers to raise e-book prices, and Apple offered to settle a European investigation into the same practices. The Justice Department cited a passage in Mr. Isaacson’s book in which Mr. Jobs called the strategy an “aikido move,” referring to the Japanese martial art, and said, “We’ll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30 percent, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.”

The charges describe a classic price-fixing arrangement, “which is presumptively illegal,” Professor Hovenkamp said. “Everybody wants market dominance, not just Apple. But it’s how you go about it. You can’t go out and fix prices.” Apple has denied the charges, and a trial has been set for next year.