As much as I'd like to believe this, it just doesn't feel right. Why didn't Apple respond in this manner sooner? Why did it take a strongly worded letter from the FCC for them to do so?
Personally, I suspect that Apple would prefer that AT&T take the blame for as much as possible.
From the tone of the letter, it sounds like Apple tries to shift blame onto AT&T where they can- For instance, Apple was responsible for the initial SlingPlayer rejection.
Apple's response says that they rejected the app because it violates AT&T's TOS, but doesn't say that AT&T requested the rejection.
Viewed in the context of the Google Voice rejection, this leads me to believe that Apple is happy to be able to point to the TOS as the reason for the rejection, rather than having to decide if they want to allow an (indirect) competitor to their iTunes TV store.
Apple's original reason for rejecting the application was that it duplicated functionality. This is almost exactly the same statement with more direct answers to specific questions.
