> Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway Pegasus doesn't help them with all iPhones, and the set of phones it can break into becomes much

> Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway Pegasus doesn't help them with all iPhones, and the set of phones it can break into becomes much smaller if you take the (not entirely simple) step of pairing your USB (Lightning) port to a management tool, even just the Apple Configurator, and/or using the features Apple added that let you emergency disable biometrics and wired unlocks together with a good self-erase config setting. Apple now even offers you a feature that can revoke Apple's keys from your iCloud backup, so even they can't provide access to surveillance states through your cloud backups. (You lose a number of features including making your photos and messages unrecoverable if you lock yourself out, which most users would hate. That's why it's not a default.) Of course the new Lockdown mode is useful if this matters to you, added by Apple specifically to deter nation state level skulduggery, as a belt and suspenders approach on top of the ongoing work to sandbox better. Your scenarios seem less far fetched now that Musk switches things on and off on a whim, but journalists and human rights activists and CEOs worldwide are under attack constantly. The rest of your post ignores Apple's resistance to both state apparatus and APTs, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute This iPhone in question was a 5C, old enough at the time to still be attacked (can't fix old hardware issues, for example). Situations like this led to not just software but hardware changes, and Apple continues to advance both technology fronts in efforts to ensure Pegasus-like tools are left unable to compromise your security and privacy. So no, in a balance of harms, I don't want the device opened up, I want it provably secure with no backdoors and nothing that can be used to pry an entry. There are, as you note, plenty other devices on the market for DIY use, so the free market gives us the best of both worlds, hackable by design and secure by design. . . . PS. A couple levels above you wrote, "Huge appetite by the governments to control user's devices and make vendors act as the police. Maybe you support this if you feel like the power is on your side but don't forget that your enemies can take over at any time. Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance." On the contrary, that's exactly the fight Apple is fighting, and they have been taking away their own access rather than have it available to those you're worried about in that comment. That is strictly better.