>a negative ruling wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem
It was setting them up for a precedent-setting legal decision in a higher court that may very well have not gone the government's way.
>they couldn't proceed without lying to the court
You're assuming that this mysterious third party that showed up the day before the initial hearing with a method to crack the phone actually exists, and that this method was successful. That is certainly a possibility, but it is also possible that they never intended to see this through and hoped that they could intimidate Apple into doing exactly what they wanted.
There were rumblings about a company that could do this weeks ago. Snowden brought up it was possible, and likely even hit upon the method.
I think the "mysterious third party" absolutely exists. I just think that the plan all along was to compel apple to do this, and then fall back on this if Apple pushed.
It was setting them up for a precedent-setting legal decision in a higher court that may very well have not gone the government's way.
>they couldn't proceed without lying to the court
You're assuming that this mysterious third party that showed up the day before the initial hearing with a method to crack the phone actually exists, and that this method was successful. That is certainly a possibility, but it is also possible that they never intended to see this through and hoped that they could intimidate Apple into doing exactly what they wanted.