> So what is it actually trying to accomplish?
This form of question, as written is unnecessarily limiting ...
(a) there doesn't have to be one thing that Apple was trying to accomplish
(b) there doesn't have to be one motivation
... so I'm going to respond to the spirit of the question with a set of explanations, all of which may be true (to some degree) at the same time.
- parents are fearful of their kid's online activities;
- parents are open to trying new ways to give their kids freedom with some guardrails;
- yes, many people at Apple do want to protect kids out of the goodness of their hearts. This fundamental instinct is widely shared, particularly among parents.
- putting the 'why' aside, many customers perceive value and will pay for it;
- Apple executives are mostly profit-seeking (with certain constraints such as: mental models, brand constraints, regulations);
- shareholders seek profits and generally have less loyalty to any particular company's 'values' -- meaning they will 'shop around' for the best performing companies;
- as a group, shareholders see mostly upside and little downside -- don't perceive significant direct harm from these changes (at least, not until this became a public relations issue);
- generally, corporations benefit from playing nice with the U.S. government;
- Apple, in particular, has quite publicly pushed back on law enforcement's calls for decryption;
- in particular, with heightened scrutiny of the large tech companies, olive branches are particularly useful;
- some at Apple may prefer to lead with a proactive solution rather than wait for imposed regulations;
- some at Apple see this as a proactive branding opportunity;
- some Apple engineers are at the top of their field regarding encryption, security, etc and may have deemed their offering the best practical option available;
- some at Apple certainly understand the risks but assess the balance of false positives and false negatives differently than you do;
My hope is to make it a bit easier to recognize the complexity here. Though it may be true that organizations act as one entity, it is not true that they have singular intent. Attempts to claim a singular intent or goal are subjective interpretations.
Note: the list above is presented sequentially, but I am not claiming any causal ordering. They would be better presented as a network/graph connected by topics and relationships.