> The recently concluded lawsuit comes to mind — there was no business case for not settling it at the earliest. They didn't settle at all, and took it to the U

> The recently concluded lawsuit comes to mind — there was no business case for not settling it at the earliest. They didn't settle at all, and took it to the US Supreme Court. I'm inclined to disagree. Apple is a global company, and many of its customers would not look favorably upon the US government being able to force Apple to decrypt their data. I actually think that Apple would have gone as far as to move a good portion of their operations outside the US and create separate legal entities to protect against this had they lost the case. And while globally people tend to have mixed opinions of Americans, the US government and its three-letter agencies are almost universally despised around the world. Apple being seen as a willing cooperator with the US government (especially on the issue of privacy / espionage) would be a huge blow to their global brand.