That's not the point though. Either they can offer privacy, and have a way by which the whims of the government cannot affect that, or they can't.

That's why Apple puts so much emphasis on functions working on your phone and not in the cloud. At the keynote they said "this happens on your phone and nothing is sent to Apple" at least half a dozen times. If it's stored on your phone, it's not subject to Prism and is encrypted so the government can't pry through it at will.