> But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy

100% - just like Apple making such a grandiose show of "privacy". "Privacy" for Apple eventually led to Apple specific and Apple-only allowed ads in first party apps and now Siri connecting to Google servers.

Indeed. If they really cared about privacy, they would end-to-end encrypt iPhone backups by default. But since they don't, US law enforcement can request my iMessage chats because the people I talk to (probably) do not have ADP enabled (which enables end-to-end encryption for backups).