First-order effects

• Apple buys time in the New York docket, avoiding a binding compelled-decryption ruling while the DOJ's April 5 status report decides whether the San Bernardino order is even necessary.
• The DOJ faces a fork: if its cited unlocking method works, its legal push against Apple loses urgency; if it fails, it must press forward on both fronts at once.

Second-order effects

• A working external unlock would shift the battleground from courtrooms to capability — the government would no longer need Apple's cooperation, weakening the leverage behind its motion to reverse the New York ruling.
• If the method dead-ends, prosecutors in the Brooklyn drug case regain momentum, and Apple confronts the prospect of adverse rulings in two jurisdictions instead of one.

Third-order effects

• The pattern here — technical workarounds deferring judicial resolution — leaves the core question of compelled decryption unsettled, and later reporting shows Apple still bracing for a repeat fight years after the FBI dropped San Bernardino without a legal answer (preparing for another legal fight).
• Each deferred ruling keeps encryption-access policy in the hands of whoever holds the next unlock trick rather than Congress or the courts, a structural ambiguity that recurs every time a new device or method resets the standoff.