I agree. But then why force him to write a PR blog post in favor of Apple?

That's what's really wrong here.

It was to give him an "out" to resolve the issue in a way that's positive to both of them. He didn't have to write a PR blog post. He just had to state the facts:

His account was linked to one involved in fraudulent activity.

He's working with Apple to get his account unlinked from the fraudulent one.

That's it! He doesn't have to admit wrongdoing and Apple (despite being very confident they didn't make a mistake) gives him the benefit of the doubt and unlinks the account. Instead, he decided to dig his own App Store grave.

Because he wrote the blog post that started this whole thing and accused Apple of doing the wrong thing. Apple just wanted him to essentially post a correction.

They're saying they think they did not make an error. That's entirely separate from what happened in reality. Besides, even if they say they think it, that might just as well be rethoric.

Rhetoric? They make it very clear in the call that they believe their view is an accurate representation of reality. Maybe you should actually listen to the call.

It's rethoric because their stated beliefs clash with the facts of reality they admit to in that call.

That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that Apple admits to certain beliefs, and to certain facts that contradict those beliefs, in the same call? Because I'm pretty sure they don't. They explain that the accounts were linked and that they don't think they made a mistake in linking those accounts. And they offered the developer a way to unlink the accounts and restore his account without the developer having to admit to wrongdoing. But nobody seems to be disputing that the second account was engaged in fraud, and Apple gave some perfectly reasonable reasons for the two accounts to have been linked.

> Are you saying that Apple admits to certain beliefs, and to certain facts that contradict those beliefs, in the same call?

Yes, and it boils down to one thing:

Either the termination of his account was correct, and should be upheld; or it was wrong, and should be rescinded.

There are many times in life when things are in a range of grey between black and white, but this case is entirely black and white. Either they made an error with the termination or they didn't. If they made an error the account should be reinstated without question, delay or condition. If they did not make an error it needs to remain closed.

By the very fact that they are willing to reinstate it, they admit to the fact that the termination was in error, regardless of what they believe of say they believe.

Doublethink is real.

This is nonsense. It was perfectly reasonable for Apple to terminate Bogdan's (the Kapeli dev) account. This doesn't mean Bogdan did something wrong. What it means is Bogdan's relative, who controls the second linked account, did something wrong. And Bogdan shares some responsibility because he set up that second account (Apple did not link the two accounts incorrectly).

And the fact that Apple's willing to work with Bogdan to unlink and reinstate his account also does not mean Apple did anything wrong. If you actually listen to the phone call the Apple rep makes it very clear that Apple believes they were correct, but that Apple is willing to offer Bogdan a way to fix things.

> It was perfectly reasonable

Well, we'll have to disagree. And i think Apple's actions, in giving the option of reinstatement, disagree as well, even though they claim to believe otherwise.

Edit: Oh, and even if something were to appear reasonable to do, but turned out in hindsight to be wrong, then it would still be an error.

The fact that they are willing to reinstate him show only on thing, a good customer policy.

And this is quite a similar to what you might experience if you ever go to a Genius Bar when you are somewhere in a range of grey as I once was.

Why is a random developer (out of millions who have not had this issue) immediately trustworthy, while Apple (who has no financial interest in banning him) is assumed to be untrustworthy?