It's entirely a free speech issue, just not at all for the developer.
The freedom of speech lies with the publisher (the final actor in the chain), not the author unless they are one and the same. The right of a newspaper to print whatever stories they want is concomitant with their right to not publish any particular story -- the right to be censors themselves.
That's a flawed analogy. There aren't artificial limitations preventing you from then publishing your own newspaper. You have no such opportunity to compete with the App Store.
Pre-emptive note: countering with a response similar to "I wasn't referring to the App Store; I was referring to the iPhone itself, which you are certainly free to compete with." doesn't just betray your analogy as incongruous. It would reveal that your analogy was helplessly broken from the start.
I think the argument to your point is that the Appstore and the iPhone device are two components of one product. Following that analogy, the other outlets would be the Android marketplace, Blackberry AppWorld, or Microsoft upcoming app market.
Thinking about it further, it's also horseshit even if you wanted to entertain the notion of "oneness". The App Store has been around only a fraction of the time that the iPhone has.
I mostly agree with your point, but my comment about free speech was in regards to the perspective of the developer. You may not consider it relevant, but I think its important to gain a complete understanding of the issue.
Regardless of who owns the publishing channel, some developers are being shut out of the primary outlet for their creative expression. Again, I am not arguing that everybody should have unfettered access to the Appstore. Apple built it into the success that it is today. Kudos to them! However, its important to understand why some developers feel constrained and limited by the system
I do wonder about viewing Apple as a publisher. How much responsibility does Apple have for the content, and does this responsibility differ from that of a newspaper?
The freedom of speech lies with the publisher (the final actor in the chain), not the author unless they are one and the same. The right of a newspaper to print whatever stories they want is concomitant with their right to not publish any particular story -- the right to be censors themselves.