Apple lawyers had already stated that if the phone was broken into they wanted to know the method. Which if the warrant had remained open would probably have been granted by the judge. By dropping the action against Apple, apple's lawyers can no longer claim that knowledge as no case is pending.
So since Cellibrite is a private Company from Isreal. All Apple needs to do is send them a locked phone, pay the $15,000 just like the FBI did and they will unlock for Apple and disclose how they did it. Apple wouldn't even have to do so directly. Quite simple to do so as a shell company or even fake being some sort of security agency. Maybe it will take a few more bucks, but if need be Apple could actually buy the company. Be assured Apple will find out the methodology used.
The how has already been partially disclosed in earlier article about Cellibrite. Most likely scenario was they intercepted the signal that counted the attempts, resetting or leaving at zero. That way a brute force attack by attached computer could try all the codes. Without tripping the ten try limit, if it was even set. They would have the four digit unlock code within a day or so.
After that FBI could snoop the phone at will. As to what they found, FBI will never disclose that and would probably lie saying they got the information needed to complete their investigation. Which of course means nothing. Nice an vague which could easily mean they found nothing, which allows them to close this loose end. At most they might be able to see the GPS locations of the 18 or so minutes they lost track of the terrorists. Which was stated somewhere in past articles.
As for any other useful information, it is quite obvious to any thinking individual that since the terrorists were so meticulous as to destroy two other phones and get rid of their computer hard drive. That is where any useful information was located as to who else was in their cell. Or other terrorist contacts. If there was any evidence on this iPhone, the terrorists would have destroyed it as well. The were very meticulous in their planning and execution of the murders.
The FBI was hoping that the negative publicity of this case being terrorist connected would sway public opinion their way. It's why they chose this particular case as opposed to hundreds of other cases many departments want access to other iPhones.
It should be possible for Apple to device a logic and layout solution in future upgrades to prevent this particular exploit. The biggest concern should be what congress might enact as new laws to force all cell phones sales in USA to include a back door. This is far from over.
If such a law were enacted, the sad part is all users would be compromised as a back door would be known to exist. And some governments and hackers will figure it out and exploit it. And the true criminal's, terrorists, would simply purchase and enable add on app's to encrypt their communications. Just as they are already doing world wide.
The truelly scary scenarios are the cyber ware fare that is currently going on. With the Cyber Warefare branch of the US government defense agencies preventing better internet security so they can mount attacks, it leaves us vulnerable to other counties attacking our infrastructure, power, gas, communications. We may have struck the first blow when our NSA, CIA, and Cyber Warefare group targeted the Siemens PLCs running the enrichment centrifuges in Iran's nuclear program. But like the invention and first use of atomic weapons, other countries have computer hacking agencies as well. Only matter of time.
