I'm willing to accept that people are going to believe whatever they would like to believe. 

That's true. What matters is their underlying facts or beliefs that lead them to believe so. I choose to believe that Apple is being duplicitous here because historically, corporates have never been known to be ethical in their business practice nor benevolent when it comes to their competitors. There have been similar issues highlighted here on HN, and elsewhere, that shows that Apple is no different from Google or Microsoft or Amazon or any other tech corporate in hesitating to abuse their status against competitors or anyone disparaging them.