iPhone apps: cash cow or anticommons?

Apple exercises a lot of control over its App Store, raising various issues. But other people would like a piece of that pie (no pun intended) as well, including transit authorities. The latest story involves NY's MTA, which is in the process of negotiating a license with the developer of StationStops. To his credit, the developer insists that the license must be for extra benefits--easy, secure updating of the data--rather than access to the data themselves, since those are by nature public facts. He's blogging the entire thing, which the MTA would probably prefer he not do, but I like a lot.