That would have eliminated their ability to fix bugs in the firmware, though.  They literally did this last week with the &quot;Error 53&quot; patch.<p>There are tricks to allow this, but broadly no: what we&#x27;re talking about here is Apple engineering a snoop-proof architecture that remains resistant when the <i>attacker is Apple itself</i>.<p>And that&#x27;s just not going to happen in any practical way.  Eventually, if the government wants to compel an backdoor in iOS encryption there will be a backdoor to iOS encryption. Arguing otherwise is just fooling ourselves.<p>And it&#x27;s a silly issue anyway.  If you want snoop-proof encryption on your personal device, install Linux, select &quot;encrypt my drive&quot;, and memorize a secure pass phrase.  Done.  Relying on a third party hardware vendor to do it for you won&#x27;t ever work.