Why did this take so long? The alternate thread pointing at the citizenlab report [1] says that "In March 2021, we examined... and determined that they had been hacked"

It's September. The NYTimes says: "Apple’s security team has been working around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with spyware from NSO Group."

So has Apple been sitting on this since March, or has CitizenLab?

[1] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/09/forcedentry-nso-group-imessage...