I think the creative differences stuff may have been ginned up. That is, Jon's people could see that this wasn't going well, but instead of calling it a failure

I think the creative differences stuff may have been ginned up. That is, Jon's people could see that this wasn't going well, but instead of calling it a failure and quitting they instead pushed hard on China stuff in order to trigger Apple's policy. I chalk up any weird timing issues to the recently-ended writer's strike, which would have thrown off calendars for taping etc.