It is not just ask for money, They are proposing that Apple use the standard and make public they use the standard, It could boost openid as no other could make.
Exactly. The $15k is trivial to either side. This would be comparable to an act of political support.
Doesnt google already use it?
Yep, Microsoft too. Apple supporting the standard would be a great help to developer adoption.. theoretically, though I think they just prefer strong-arming developers into using their proprietary API anyway, standard irrespective.
Twitter and Facebook are the big two holdouts besides Apple that makes social sign in buttons a PITA. OpenID Connect can already provide MS and Google and also supports Paypal, Yahoo, AOL, etc.