1. Yes and I believe them (not). They will. Now. That they got busted. Red handed. Again.

2. They can't catch a break!! (but they try really hard to be on the news with news of sexual harassment, actively identifying and avoiding authorities, trying to cover up rapes, spying on drivers and clients)(that's a good rap sheet)

I believe them. Uber may be a shitty company but that seems like a very likely reason.

It seems legitimate.

You also seem to irattionally hate Uber.

It does seem legitimate, but I'm not sure the hatred of Uber is really irrational - they've got a terrible record for shady behaviour, which is going to influence people's opinion of them when something like this comes up.

His hate isn't necessarily irrational.

Uber promises you that they're being real nice. That is really comforting to know that they are claiming to be acting morally here...

Uber also say they protect your privacy, even when they violate it instead.

I kind of want to know why Apple granted them permission to do this. It seems like a horrible idea, regardless of the app vendor. What the hell were they thinking?

They needed to boost the Apple Watch adoption when it was released. To do that, they wanted many apps on there, including popular ones like Uber (and Uber is actually a good use case). Unfortunately, WatchOS couldn’t render maps back then. The marketing department was probably at their ass to get it working, so the engineering team had to come up with something so Uber would be on the Apple Watch: they allowed them to use private APIs.

A very bad move but I can understand the motive

Hmm... I suppose that does explain the motive, though I'm not sure about the logic.

On the other hand, I have the luxury of Monday quarterbacking and the knowledge of what has gone on between now and then.

I am curious as to who else might have gotten that entitlement and we just don't know it yet. Apple, being more privacy aware (or at least PR aware), probably has not handed it out to bunches of people and governments. Probably...

Only Uber got it.

Are you certain of this? If so, how?

I investigated the situation and checked to ensure there were not other apps using this (As to not unfairly single Uber out).

I think this is how the Find My Friends app on the phone draws its map to this day.

/s