Apple isn't altruistic, but I do think they want to have strong privacy. They cooperate with governments to what seems to be the minimum extent required to do b

Apple isn't altruistic, but I do think they want to have strong privacy. They cooperate with governments to what seems to be the minimum extent required to do business in a given country. They can't change governments. In China and other more authoritarian nations that means cooperating a lot. If you don't you do no business in China. In the USA they seem to be looking for a new minimum level of cooperation, or trying to enhance privacy a little without moving the needle. In any case this particular strategy looks like a failure in the market. They might re-engineer it or backpedal or just toss the whole idea of encrypting iCloud.