Just because their primary revenue is from hardware, doesn't mean it isn't attractive to also add extra, uncorrelated revenue sources such as ads and data. Whether they have innovation or not is irrelevant to this.
It is relevant because transitioning from premium into an ad platform is a low-brow-caveman-bottom-of-the-bucket move, only the best one to make once you're out of better options.
Truly premium products respect your privacy.
It turns out truly premium goods aren't Google, Tesla, and soon won't be Apple, if Tim&co go down this path.
"truly premium" is one of those no-true-scotsman arguments.
The problem is that apple intends to make maximum profit. The premium product can produce that, but if they smell that their customers don't care enough about privacy, they could _also_ sell ads on top of the premium tax. So until people starts dropping iphones because of it, they will proceed.
If the US government (or any, really) makes that unattractive, then I am all for it, regardless of any innovation aspect. It’s like Samsung double-dipping by making its smart TVs gather data about their users. This should be illegal.
Truly premium products respect your privacy.
It turns out truly premium goods aren't Google, Tesla, and soon won't be Apple, if Tim&co go down this path.