Yes, but the big exception to the fourth amendment are private searches. As long as it's not the government, or someone working on their behalf searching, it's not covered by the fourth amendment. The trend these days is to eliminate constitutional protections by farming the violations out to private corporations.
I agree it's not a violation of the fourth amendment (so long as Apple is not being forced to do this by the government), which I why I said "the principle behind the fourth amendment" instead.
I wonder what the limits to this are. Clearly if government asks for help then that counts, but what happens if government slowly builds up partnerships where certain 'good partner' behavior is expected but never explicitly required in a contract?
Say government started favoring companies who scan for drug images for any contracts over those who don't? Or say that while working with companies that scan for drug images they build up relationships that lead to both better treatment and to better chances at winning contracts? Maybe companies that refuse to implement the drug abuse material scans end up getting investigated more often.
I wonder how long until the fourth amendment can be considered dead due to this one exception?
The U.S.A.'s weak privacy protections aren't the entire world, you know.
In the E.U., and other places, companies are definitely held to stricter standards as to what extent they can search a private device, even if they claim the o.s. is only a service.
