Apple gets on the order of $12 billion a year from Google to make Google Search the default search engine in iOS. All that money comes from ads. They care about privacy until it hits their pocketbook.
It's a lot of money, but it's pocket change for Apple in the scheme of things—$220 billion in hardware revenue and a $2 trillion market cap.
Google needs to pay it far more than Apple needs the money. Google knows Apple customers are far more lucrative than Android customers.
I wish they had come up with an alternate revenue stream.
Also people would want google anyway. After all it’s still the most useful search engine for almost everyone. Apple is primarily still a device maker for people who want stuff to justwerk and people who have no interest in tech.