I feel like this is the sort of situation that shouldn't even be featured in the discussion. Who else signed the press report? It's totally irrelevant.
I agree it would have been very strange for the letter to be signed by both Tim Cook and Scott Forstall. For one thing, it would make Cook look smaller than Jobs, who, if I recall correctly, never had a co-signer on such a letter. It wouldn't have looked much better for Cook if Forstall had signed the letter alone, given its significance to the company and its customers.
My guess is that Forstall refused to sign off on the public apology. Nobody was asking him to sign the letter, but he was asked by Cook to stand behind it. Failure to do so was probably the last straw for his remaining in an active role at Apple (a role he clearly was at least contemplating leaving after his big stock sale).
Apple Inc. executive Scott Forstall was asked to leave the company after he refused to sign his name to a letter apologizing for shortcomings in Apple's new mapping service, according to people familiar with the matter.
That's their justification. I'm still skeptical. No offense, but an apology not signed by Cook isn't an Apple apology. Tim was gonna' sign it no matter what I believe.
I'm guessing it wasn't a literal "signing", but rather he refused to put his name on it, probably because he disagreed with it in principle.
It would have been signed by Tim Cook on behalf of everyone at Apple, but my guess is that Forstall wasn't on board, regardless of whether his name appeared on the public announcement or not.
