Not so ironic if you consider that Apple probably has a legal agreement with the NYT company to do so. Just look at how frequently the NYT is featured in Apple commercials and presentations; this doesn't happen just by accident.

The problem here is that the Pulse reader is (from the point of view of the NYT) trying to get a free ride on the NYT's brand name. This is really no different from ripping off any other brand name to advocate your product, e.g., you can't advertise your "high-performance shoe laces" by prominently featuring Nike shoes without obtaining prior approval.

I was wondering about that too. I figured all of the default bookmarks were a commercial side-load only a touch less obnoxious than the applications various hardware makers add to Windows installations.

I think that there is a difference between including a feature that suggests 3rd party data such as NYT RSS and something that includes it by default. Imagine if they had a free version that served up ads with NYT content--that wouldn't be very fair to NYT, would it?