That's fair. My point is only that self-interest explains more variance here than caring about privacy. They may genuinely care about privacy to some degree - just as i'm sure Google and Facebook do. They both just care about profit more, and for Google/FB, those things come into conflict. For Apple they don't.

Your stance seems unfalsifiable. If a company did exist that cared more about their values than profit, how would you recognize it?

But more importantly: who cares? We’re not judging whether Tim Cook oughta get into heaven.

People seem highly driven by the profit motive, arguably more than by most other motives. If Apple’s goals are aligned with mine and motivated by profit so they’re likely to be careful to keep from damaging their reputation... great!

It is falsifiable, i've explained elsewhere my reasoning, but i'll repeat it here: The same basic moral orientation that would motivate one to care about privacy would also motivate them to care about freedom. Apple's policy of not giving you sovereignty over your device is anti-freedom. However, the thing that explains both behaviors is self-interest. It's to Apple's strategic interest to focus on privacy, it's not to their strategic interest to focus on freedom. Therefore, the most likely explanation for their behavior is their strategic self-interest, and not any moral orientation towards privacy.

It's also been brought up by others that Apple discards its privacy morals when it comes to China. Which is another point in the "probably doesn't actually care about privacy" column. Occam's razor says the simplest explanation is most often true. The simplest explanation here is self-interest.

so in summary you are saying 1. Apple is selfish (like any other company). 2. Their self interest is coupled to user privacy (but not freedom or moral values).

I'm saying that their stance on privacy is motivated by self-interest. Nothing more, nothing less.