That actually seems like there may be a few people involved and one of them is a cowboy PM who said fuck it, ship it to make the demo. And then damage control came in later. Possibly the PM didn't even know about the asks for permission?
If a PM there didn’t say “fuck it ship it even without her permission” they’d probably be replaced with someone who would.
I expect the cost of any potential legal action/settlement was happily accepted in order to put on an impressive announcement.
Given the timeline it sounds like the PM was told "just go ahead with it, I'll get the permission".
Jobs responds minutes later... "Fuck the lawyers."