Apple has been clear from the beginning. They do not supplement revenue with personal data sharing or ads. There is not hidden agenda here. Their major competition shares data with other companies and is very forthcoming with the government. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung all sell access to their user's data. This is a winning strategy because Apple already charged a premium for it's products. Now more than ever that value added is win for the customer.

Just to be clear Apple does give information to the government, but they stopped short of unlocking devices for the government. I see this as a very big important precedent.

It could also be a product of their engineering teams and upper management. Most of the Apple development staff are in California and are highly technical. If a majority of the top dogs really believe in protecting privacy then it’s easy for them to get it done.

Isn't that the point, though? Touch ID was a major security feature (industry-changing even) that was added to the phone without changing the behavior of users. It's nearly a perfect scenario of adding an incredible amount of functionality for users without requiring them to do anything. Apple has always been about user security regardless of whether or not it was obvious to users.