I agree with some of what you say but I don't think you can say Apple changed on including apps. They didn't include apps from the first gen due to the huge engineering effort required to successfully support 3rd parties and have the mechanisms in place to distribute apps. Launching a v1 product and including a ton of 3rd party support for an unproven phone would have been a big gamble. Coming out with it a year later isn't waffling, it's a smart business move.
Except that when iPhone launched, they didn't say "we're still working on supporting 3rd party apps"; instead the official line from Apple was "if you want to develop for iPhone, write web apps." Even Gruber called it ludicrous at the time.
