> They weren't asking the dev to admit to fraud. They were asking him to admit to opening multiple developer accounts and losing control of one. Which both sides acknowledge he did. I'm not sure I understand why the developer thinks this would be an admission of wrongdoing on his part

Just to be clear, the developer would've been happy to do exactly that:

> On Saturday they told me that they are fine with me writing the truth about what happened, and that if I did that, my account would be restored. Saturday night I sent a blog post draft to Apple and have since waited for their approval.

However ...

> Tonight Apple decided to accuse me of manipulating the App Store in public via a spokesperson.

Apple's press release does not make any mention of the fact that the fraudulent reviews were for apps from a different (linked) developer account. They also say that they gave multiple warnings prior to removing the app. The developer's blog post and his recording shows this only to be true for the linked account, not his. At the very least, Apple is guilty of lying by omission.

All in all, I think this is very bad form from Apple. They could've simply admitted that their notification system does not present a full picture to developers and fix that, rather than do some weird "we want to make clear we did nothing wrong" dance, and then go out and make misleading statements.