You can root, but it's security-suicide because the OS' security model isn't designed for that.

> or use one without signing in with an Apple account

Technically yes, although you couldn't download any apps so you really don't want to.

> If not, then I believe the devices are still very much part of a mass-scale corporate surveillance network.

What I always tell people is to look at the economic incentives. Apple makes the vast majority of its money from paying customers, not advertisers, so it has less use for big data. It has also invested huge amounts of money in marketing itself as a champion of privacy, a key diversifier from its competitors. If it tried to do some shady data-gathering, it would have relatively little to gain and everything to lose when that inevitably leaked. Apple usually can't even keep the next iPhone a secret; there's no way they could conceal a massive conspiracy to secretly collect data on customers. And if they did, and it became public knowledge, their sales would go down the tube. It's just bad business. I don't trust any corporation to do what's right out of the goodness of their hearts, but I certainly trust them to do what's best for business.

It's not necessary to download apps from the App Store to use an iPhone.

I'm not sure what was the need for you to call me a liar. If anything I've said is inaccurate, I guess it has changed in the last few months, and I would love to know that.

So it's not correct to say "you can't use an iPhone without an Apple ID" in any sense. People should be SPECIFIC.

It’s not like iPhones have a reputation for not having bugs; it seems like every version has a passcode bypass or a DoS-via-iMessage. By some standards, this is worse (remotely triggerable, leaks audio/video), but in other cases it’s not as bad: the attacker’s Apple ID ends up in the call logs of the affected person.

Are there prior examples of any phone manufacturer being reputationally damaged by vulnerabilities like this? Heck, Samsung’s phones literally caught fire and they’re still selling phones just fine.

Oh I don't know, someone denied the call because they're possibly in the shower, or other inappropriate moments. Oh look now they're naked on a video call... Yikes!

I'm asking:

Is there any historical evidence that high-severity bugs in iPhones (or really any mobile phone) are reputationally damaging, sufficiently that Apple would worry about the impact of this bug?

I'm not aware of any instance in the past where a high-sev iPhone bug had noticable long-term impact. This is similar to other issues, like the Sony PSN hack, where despite the gravity of the issue, everything continued long-term as if nothing had happened.

That reads much clearer, you're right, I misunderstood what you meant. I think it depends, PSN isn't as personal as someone's potential unsolicited nudes being extracted by total strangers. If enough bad press came of it, it wouldn't be the same ballpark. I certainly hope nothing horrible comes of it.

I'm sure Apple "worries" about any bug and its potential impact on its reputation, particularly in the area of privacy, where it has a leg up on Android at least in perception.

That said, what historical bug is up to this one for iOS? This is a big deal and I cannot recall anything similar.

edit 1: this hasn't exactly been a banner couple of months for iPhone. You'd expect that mitigating any negative news about the device would be paramount

edit 2: look to Facebook. I find it encouraging that people have reacted so negatively to a company acting so cavalier with their personal data and privacy. Yes, I think Apple cares, moreso than with other bugs.

Where sending somebody a .tiff file via iMessage, web page, or email would give the attacker RCE on the device.

I also don't think it had the impact you're suggesting, nor would it be as immediately palatable as a privacy issue to the layperson.

The sad fact is consumers don't care one bit. The only people who care are people who have some interest in disliking the company who was breached, in which case they're likely not paying customers anyway.

Audio and video leaking without knowledge from such a personal device that people take with them everywhere is about as bad as it gets in terms of privacy breach.

If Apple fixes this bug this week, I will consider it a significant bug with a good response, and move on. If I wanted more privacy, what would I switch to anyway? Android? Ha!

Yes, I keep notes about things, some of which contain links. Obviously, these links used to work.