[kube-system]

Yes, it is.

An iPhone that cannot connect to Apple’s servers is essentially bricked. Not only do a significant number of critical features on the phone require reaching out to Apple to function, but IIRC, after a certain period of time without being able to contact Apple, the phone will require you to log in with your Apple ID. I believe this is to prevent activation lock bypasses by blocking network resources.

I remember reading about an issue a while back, where a person got locked out of their phone at sea, because they didn’t have network access for an extended period of time.

[minsc__and__boo]

So then Apple pushes an quick update to disable login after N days.

You're splitting hairs here about Apple choosing to share their user data with the Chinese government over their user's privacy.