I was there, part of a small community writing apps pre-SDK.
Neither, I, nor anyone else, can promise you it wasn't just a simple $ calculation.
That being said, literally every signal, inside, outside, or leaked, was that apps / public SDK, if it existed meaningfully before release, had to be accelerated due to a poor reaction to the infamous "sweet solution", web apps.
I agree its logically possible, but I'd like to note for the historical record that this does not jive with what happened, at the time. Even setting that aside, it doesn't sound right in the context of that management team. That version of Apple wasn't proud of selling complements to their goods, they weren't huge on maximizing revenue from selling music or bragging about it. But they were huge on bragging about selling iPods.
