Just to clarify, I strongly dislike Apple's controlling policies on iOS. I think it's ridiculous that they won't allow sideloading apps or downgrading your OS, let alone installing custom OS builds. However, going from "they can tell your phone to download a U2 album if you ticked the box" to "thus they own your vacation photos" is still a complete non-sequitur.
Ignoring the actual legalities involved, if some three-letter agency went to Apple and said "we want all the data on the Apple devices belonging to to so-and-so," Could Apple theoretically access it, and hand it over?
If not, then I'll concede I was massively too paranoid, which wouldn't be the first time when it comes to Apple (and Google.. definitely and Google cars, and Adobe as soon as they pulled that BS with Creative Cloud) But if so then (even if I was wrong about the U2 thing) I don't believe i'm speculating too wildly.
Apple owns the content to the degree that they can limit your access to it more than you can limit theirs - "ownership" in this case is not so much a legal as a practical matter. You can't really own something you don't control. I'll extend this to any app-based OS as far as it applies.
That's the whole root of the discussion here. The answer used to be, yes, Apple could help extract user data from an iPhone and hand it over to authorities (although I think the authorities still needed to take physical possession of the device first). Now they're building it so that Apple can't access your data regardless, because it's encrypted with keys they don't have. This naturally annoys law enforcement.
