Unless one of their real goals was to get the conversation going about creating new laws that would make uncrackable products illegal, without actually testing the limits of existing laws. Because that is what they achieved.

> This particular phone is immaterial, and Apple can always talk big later about how they patched any of the security holes that the government used, to recover face.

That is a nuanced understanding of this issue that most consumers simply do not and will not have. Most will hear nothing other than "the feds can now crack iPhones" and will assume that government will be able to beat any future improvements too.