"Today, he acknowledges that Apples about-face could be related to changes in the regulatory environment, but he thinks Apples new attitude comes down to one thing: Android."
I'd imagine nearly no one is buying Android phones because you can get a Bitcoin app for them. Chances are good Apple's lawyers said "shut it down, we need to figure this out first" and this is the end result. No conspiracy theories required.
That sounds right. Especially given the rumor that Apple is cooking up their own mobile payment service. I guess when you try to do something like this, the lawyers and other higher ups need to figure a lot of things out first. And this bitcoin business looks like it falls somewhere either within this scope or at least very very close to it. I think they needed this time to get a comprehensive look what they were planning re: mobile payments and how bitcoin dealing might be affected by this.