So, now we have a "He Said; She Said" situation. Who do we trust? Apple? They've made mistakes before, and need to protect their integrity. The Dash developer? It's in his best interests to paint himself in the best light.
What's worse, by coming out, the Dash developer has forced Apple into a defensive position, ensuring that Dash will never appear on iOS again. Dash has now lost revenue and exposure opportunities, and Apple's consumers are reminded once again that they don't have the right to control their devices.
Both sides want to come out of this looking good, and right now neither side does.
Dash developer caught up in an errant fraud check? Eh, it happens. At least this is Apple; were it Google, the developer would be right proper fucked (then again, his post made it to HN, so he might have gotten some special attention).
However, making that resolution conditional on the developer making Apple look good in a blog post? That feels pretty scummy here again to me.
The error seems innocent enough to me (though the party line of "we can't tell you why you were shut down" is the worst way to interact with your developers), but the conditional resolution is not making Apple look good.
What's worse, by coming out, the Dash developer has forced Apple into a defensive position, ensuring that Dash will never appear on iOS again. Dash has now lost revenue and exposure opportunities, and Apple's consumers are reminded once again that they don't have the right to control their devices.
Both sides want to come out of this looking good, and right now neither side does.