We know HKers are getting more and more tracking from the mainland government and are switching to applications not typically used for communication and organization. https://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-youth-using-tinder...

We also know that Apple has accommodated Chinese government requests to increase their ability to monitor communications: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/21/apple-bends-to-chinese-gov...

And as one of the most valuable companies in the world that ships software, it is surprising to see regressions in their software.

The article said that right now legitimate applications on the App Store could contain jailbreak code.

Of course these things are entirely possible to be unrelated, which is why I mentioned the tongue in cheek “tinfoil hat”.

The timeliness of the response from Apple in patching this reintroduced vulnerability should be swift. If so, I’m happy to step away from this position entirely.

Any number of backdoors can be introduced with any update for any operating system or app. Generally governments around the world want backdoors and information from companies and companies generally comply.

And even if you assume a publicly traded company lying outright, what do you think is more likely: then silently backdooring the phones of people in Hongkong or pretending to have accidentally unpatched a vulnerability, hoping people would update to that OS in order for pretty obvious exploits being able to run?

If I was as evil as you make Apple out to be I would sure as hell do the former.