[mkaltenecker]

Hm, I tend to think Apple (or any company, really) is clever enough to foresee the obvious consequences of policy changes.

This is one of those. Apple knew that certain government agencies are required to purchase only EPEAT certified hardware. They knew they would lose that business. And they nevertheless decided for the change, knowing that consequence.

That leads me to think that Apple changed direction because of other consequences they did not expect and (apparently) could not predict, in this case the public outrage.

[schwartzmike]

Or, if you're a little cynical, you might think Apple orchestrated this whole thing as a little free PR.

[mkaltenecker]

I don’t see this as positive PR by any stretch of the imagination. This looks like Apple wanted to naughty things, got caught and had to reverse direction. Not positive.

If any conspiracy theory is plausible at all then it’s that they wanted to make EPEAT be more willing to change their standards – but I would imagine that even that is something you would rather do behind closed doors (maybe they did and it didn’t work).