I don’t doubt it. Apple would probably just ship a new app called “Texts” or something that only does traditional cell carrier text messages, and then refer customers to third party solutions for video conferencing. A nice explanatory web page on Apple’s website to point customers in the region towards would be the cherry on top.

Good on them for standing up for what’s right on this.

This is one thing Apple has been pretty firm on. You can’t have a secure product and have backdoors. You can try to hide them all you want, but a backdoor will always be a massive security vulnerability.

Respect