One key thing I noticed is this is before iPadOS was a thing, so this patch targets iPads too... Which makes me wonder... this is speculation no proof, but I wonder if someone is exploiting Point of Sale devices that are powered by old iPads somehow, which is out of the control of a lot of end-users who are at thee mercy of the POS vendors who are probably charging an insane premium on them.

I worked at a restaurant chain and I remember it being a whole thing to even consider reworking the POS tables + software due to rising costs.

By the phrasing this is almost certainly a patch for targeted vulnerabilities to install Pegasus or similar.

I work for a POS company that uses iPads (along other clients) and I’ve not heard of anything like that. I assume it’s people of interest (journalists, or politicians).

Also my company, as well as at least 1 other I know of that uses iPads, don’t sell the iPads to the stores, they replace or buy their iPads directly from Apple. Smaller places handle it all themselves, larger might use MDM but they are buying them at-cost.

I’m not saying everyone does that, just that I’m not aware of it.

Only if you think some state intelligence agency is wasting million-dollar vulnerabilities on a bit of credit card skimming.