Apple

Yeah but his point stands. Here’s the summary:

• If you’re syncing iMessages via iCloud but don’t use iCloud backup without Advanced Data Protection, it’s E2E
• If you have iCloud backup enabled without Advanced Data Protection enabled, iMessage isn’t E2E encrypted
• If you have Advanced Data Protection turned on for iCloud and you’re using iCloud backup, iMessage is E2E encrypted however you look at it.

It’s generally good practice to not use iCloud backups but rather back it up yourself, however, most people don’t care enough.

It’s generally a question about what’s best for the user, your general user would likely be more mad losing all their messages because they forgot their password then they are calmed by the fact that no one else can read the data. Same for photos and files, however for sensitive categories such as health and passwords they are always end to end encrypted as it’s determined it’s worse for anyone else to get that data then it is for the user to lose it.

For anyone that truly cares to have complete encryption there is advanced data protection but for the general users the defaults are a good balance between security and ease of use.