The firm has become a vocal opponent of what it views as UK government moves against online privacy

This is a huge understatement. People already view online privacy as non existent, so they won’t be very concerned with the implications. This goes well beyond online privacy. iMessage and Facetime are used for the majority of iPhone user’s communication with friends and family. This isn’t very different than the government planting a listening device in your living room and monitoring all of the conversations you have in your house. This isn’t a violation of “online privacy”. This is an intrusion into people’s basic essential right to privacy, period.