Apple is in a really tough position. I don't know if there's any way they could fulfil the original request without it effectively becoming a backdoor. Disabling E2E for the UK market is just kicking the can down the road.
Even simply developing a tool to coerce users out of E2E without their explicit consent to comply with local laws could be abused in the future to obtain E2E messages with a warrant on different countries.
But customers. People keep saying they should just not be in that country. It is far better to have the choice of using an iPhone even if particular features are no longer available.
Even simply developing a tool to coerce users out of E2E without their explicit consent to comply with local laws could be abused in the future to obtain E2E messages with a warrant on different countries.
A very difficult position to be in.