It also goes against Apple's earlier statements about how photos should reflect real memories as they happened, not an idealized version like what Goolge was pitching during their Pixel 10 launch event last year.

Turns out they didn't actually believe that, they only said it because they were behind on GenAI. They caved to investor demand, no longer stand for any principles (if they ever had any in the first place)

They may, actually, believe that, however possibly their users might very vocally not believe that in feedback.

Sometimes you just have to give customers what they claim to want instead of fighting them every step of the way.