How private do people actually think it is? It's a completely opaque system, 0% privacy should be assumed by default.
"Privacy is a fundamental human right. At Apple, it’s also one of our core values. Your devices are important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those experiences, and who you share it with, should be up to you. We design Apple products to protect your privacy and give you control over your information. It’s not always easy. But that’s the kind of innovation we believe in."
So, according to Apple, it is designed "to protect your privacy and give you control over your information".
Don't be deceived; the San Bernardino case was a very intentionally public op to convince us that they will "fight" for our right to privacy, but the not-so-public track record since has demonstrated their absolute willingness to lick the boots of virtually every government whose citizens impact their top line materially.
This isn't a slag on Apple, specifically. Facebook, Google, et al will declaim "Russian Propaganda" all day long and then immediately roll over for Russian demands to censor political opposition, for instance. They all do it.
It's all a show. You have no privacy with any of Big Tech, regardless of where you live.
Is there any public information that supports this claim?
See for yourself.
What sort of percentage of the entries on that unprinted list can be summarized as "they follow the law in the places where they do business?"
You’ve reversed cause and effect. Apple’s surprise at the backlash to their position on San Bernardino is well documented. It directly led to the softening of their stance on privacy.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/21/21075033/apple-icloud-end...
The iPhone uploads very nearly the entire contents of the device every night by default to Apple, in a format Apple can easily read.
Some of it is "E2EE", but Apple holds the keys that can decrypt that data.
Data types that are protected by end-to-end encryption—such as your Keychain, Messages, Screen Time, and Health data—are not accessible via iCloud Data Recovery Service. Your device passcodes, which only you know, are required to decrypt and access them. Only you can access this information, and only on devices where you're signed in to iCloud.
No, not by default. That would be impossible, since iCloud Backup first requires an iCloud Account, and then requires enough iCloud storage space to backup your phone. You get 5GB for free, which is not enough for a lot of people.
It's possible your understanding is out of date.
I really dislike this framing and I could not disagree more. Android is open source does that mean it is also zero percent privacy? What about the Anom phone in recent news? If all three are zero percent privacy then would they not be equally private? iPhone is more private than Android as there's much less data exfiltration and the Anom phone is clearly less private than both. I love open source, but saying any closed source system is zero percent private is not helpful.