I'd love if there was someplace we could go to test this assertion instead of relying on unbacked statements.

I'm not saying it's untrue, but there is a lot of ambiguity in this claim as things stand. Are you referring to abuse of their monopoly power to censor speech? Abuse of same to compromise human rights? Nefarious trickery to subvert their own security model? Use of forced labor to assemble devices? Each is its own form of evil; the evidence for each ranges from beyond doubt to (afaik) non-existent; typing them out every time one wishes to discuss apple is daunting.

I'm as cynical as the next person - probably even more so. But, I have come to recognize that there is value in "pretending". It establishes what our societal values are, even if we don't live up to them. This allows us to critique the failures, and work towards a better world with fewer failings.

So, is Apple actually going to back down from this and respect that computing devices should fully serve the interests of the owner? Perhaps not, and likely not to the point of allowing end user customization, software modification, etc. But I'd much rather live in the world where we say that Apple should do so, and they nominally agree. Where we keep holding their feet to the fire, by pointing to the hypocrisy when they reference lofty values. The alternative is to continue down the path where we just accept Surveillance Valley's expedient panopticons, and they move on to destroying the next societal value they find inconvenient.