[will_hughes]

There's widespread speculation that this is a test case.

I.e one big high visibility case where there is general support that the government should have access to a Terrorist's data.

Once Apple has been forced to write this one version of the software, the legal precedent is there to force Apple (and every other company building software and devices) to do it again for all the other devices that any law enforcement agency has on hand, for scenarios that might not have as much support.