[natch]

I doubt Apple leadership is unbothered by the reality of censorship that some countries impose. Unfortunately China fully embraces censorship though. There is a lot of good done by giving another billion and a half people access to a non-privacy-invading mobile OS so balancing that against bowing to censorship is a tough decision.

If you think you disagree, please discuss your reasons.

[CharlesColeman]

> There is a lot of good done by giving another billion and a half people access to a non-privacy-invading mobile OS so balancing that against bowing to censorship is a tough decision.

> If you think you disagree, please discuss your reasons.

Because it's not going to work that way, since that "access" actually amounts to authoritarian leverage over the ecosystem. Apple feels it needs the Chinese market more than the PRC feels it needs Apple [1]. As a result Apple's already haded over the Chinese iCloud to a local company (state owned, I think), which will undoubtably hand over encryption keys to the authorities whenever it's asked. It's not inconceivable to me that the PRC may use its leverage over Apple further weaken the iPhone ecosystem (either for Chinese phones or worldwide).

[1] The PRC has many domestic manufacturers like Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo (~OnePlus), Vivo, etc. The domestic costs for them for banning a foreign maker with a sub-10% marketshare like Apple are approximately zero.

[natch]

I have no inside knowledge but what I’ve heard is that Apple’s cloud generally does not hold any keys. Keys are derived from information available only on user devices including the user password, and do not leave the devices. There are exceptions for cases where required for some cloud based functionality but that would not include simple storage and retrieval.

However this may be different in China. Just saying it’s possible for the cloud to be kept in the dark in some cases and that’s what Apple supposedly does whenever they can. Yeah some weasel words there, I realize.