And if they did it, the FBI would have made more future requests for apple to spend time and money.
And if the custom software somehow got out into the wild, that would threaten apple's bottom line as well.
The FBI situation was just another example of apple taking care of themselves.
I don't think it does as I've explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11959074
So, let's recap. Tim Cook, already hit due to privacy issue, might have a personal stake in improving privacy in tech. They knew their products weren't secure. I knew third parties that could've cracked it as they cracked IC's designed for security w/ obfuscation & tamper-resistance. As I predicted, the FBI ended up finding a group that cracked it for a low, six digits. That means the attack was easy with much of that probably profit.
That Apple knowingly leaves their devices insecure despite having money and incentive to knock out low-hanging fruit means all this talk is mostly branding. They're just differentiating themselves with appearance of greater security/privacy. Like they did when they said Mac's were immune to malware back in the day. Except this time, they actually deliver a good chunk of what they claim at least. I'll give them that. :)
- non-technical (i.e. most) people interpreting the situation as "Apple protects terrorists"
- provoking the creation of legislation that would impose backdoor requirements on their software
- potentially extreme financial consequences if the court were to take a hard-line pro-FBI stance (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-laws...)
Again, the refusal to admit that it is possible for a company to behave altruistically in the face of clear evidence is simply dogmatism.