Well when you are building a feature that can only be appreciated by a subculture of people (privacy advocates), and they complain about the most basic faux pas that you could do in their culture (not asking them before you phone home with data derived from their data)... you have invited these people to criticise you.

Most people I know of wouldn't care about such a feature other than a breathless sort of "Wow, Apple tech!" So they are building something which is intended to win over privacy conscious people, kudos to them, everyone stands to benefit. But the most basic custom in that subculture is consent. So they built something really great and then clumsily failed on the easiest detail because it is so meaningless to everyone except that target audience. To that audience, they don't bother criticising google or microsoft (again) because it goes without saying that those companies are terrible, it doesn't need to be said again.