If you accept that there is some marginal benefit in getting employees together physically, (and as someone with a remote position, I certainly do) then I think the logic of "we already spent the money, get in here" has a degree of truth to it.

And do they ignore the fact that many of apple’s most important employees work in physically secured labs where physical device access is a major part of their job?

Like sure GitHub can be remote top to bottom, but an insane amount of Apples workflow is prototype driven and those prototypes cannot physically leave their secure facilities. Hard to argue (from a retention standpoint) that those people need to come in full time but the Apple Music people can do whatever they want.

What are the percentages? Apple built Apple Park to not house the majority of employees?