I am not convinced apple wasn’t aware of what NSO was doing?
Governments want access to spy on people. Apple wants to market and sell a “secure” mobile device.
In a way NSO provides apple with a perfect out. They can legally claim they are secure platform and do not work with bad actors or foreign governments to “spy”.
Hear no evil see no evil. NSO ability to penetrate iOS gives powerful governments what they want and in a way may keep “pressure” off Apple in providing official back door access.
How would Apple benefit from this conspiracy? Apple these days is throwing out the "secure" and "private" PR to differentiate themselves from their surveillance capitalist neighbors. They would never do anything that hurts their PR, and they would always do the bare minimum security and privacy to support it. If they knew of these vulnerabilities ahead of time, I am positive they would have patched them. This is not to say that they are doing everything they can, but I don't see your proposed conspiracy following profit-maximizing corporate logic. Apple isn't there to screw you; they're just there for the big buck.
The benefit would be they could still market the device and the most “secure” but at the same time duck pressure from governments to allow back door access.
If Apple truly secured the OS to the point where even state level actors could not access they bring some unwanted attention, regulation, etc from power governmental agencies.
Apple has also been interestingly silent /vague on a response to this story.
Governments want access to spy on people. Apple wants to market and sell a “secure” mobile device.
In a way NSO provides apple with a perfect out. They can legally claim they are secure platform and do not work with bad actors or foreign governments to “spy”.
Hear no evil see no evil. NSO ability to penetrate iOS gives powerful governments what they want and in a way may keep “pressure” off Apple in providing official back door access.