That is kind of proving OPs point, though: the differentiating factor isn’t actual privacy, it’s an impression of privacy that you’re sold; the warm, fuzzy feeling that you’re using a superior product because you’re special and this phone is for special people that have important data that needs to be protected, and as a manufacturer of special people devices, Apple obviously takes care of this—because you’re important, duh!

If they can get away with appearing to care about privacy instead of actually doing so, they will. That’s all it takes to look better than Google.