> Apple can still read any message you exchange with practically anyone through their iCloud backups, since they are overwhelmingly likely to have backups enabled and overwhelmingly unlikely to have proactively enabled the non-default "Advanced Data Protection" feature.

> They could have implemented iMessage to not backup messages from people who enabled ADP, but they didn't. They won't even inform you when your conversation partner has uploaded your messages to Apple's servers in a form that Apple can read.

> Android's equivalent cloud backup service has been properly end-to-end encrypted by default for many years. Meaning that you don't need to convince the whole world to turn on an optional feature before your backups can be fully protected.

> Apple's stated reason for not enabling end-to-end encryption on iCloud backups by default is that it would cause data loss when users lose their devices. But Google's implementation avoids this problem. Furthermore, Apple does do end-to-end encryption by default on other critical information that would be painful to lose, such as your account passwords stored in Keychain. So that excuse doesn't seem to hold water.