Why are we supposed to play dumb about the subtext behind Cook&#x27;s comment?<p>I&#x27;m sure Cook believes what he&#x27;s saying, but the real marketing strategy here isn&#x27;t &quot;crypto versus plaintext&quot;; it&#x27;s &quot;consumer product company&quot; versus &quot;online service provider&quot;.<p>Seen through this lens, there&#x27;s an argument that what Cook is doing is counterproductive. He&#x27;s making an argument that Google can&#x27;t sign on to, and using crypto as a wedge to drive the argument home. &quot;Be a consumer product company, because then you can protect users with crypto&quot;.<p>Also: the kind of encryption that Apple is really making a stand for? They do a better job of it than Android, but Android provides the same encryption: what scares the USG about Apple is that iPhones are locked by default, and when they&#x27;re locked, they can&#x27;t be imaged easily. That&#x27;s true of Google&#x27;s phones as well.<p>Meanwhile, Google is doing a much better job of securing browser crypto than Apple is; Apple is almost an obstacle to better browser crypto.