If you are referring to the incident below, it is different because the government asked Apple to write software to allow access to the device: https://en.wiki

If you are referring to the incident below, it is different because the government asked Apple to write software to allow access to the device: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d... If Apple had simply had the text records, they would have had to comply with the government order to provide them.