So you would be in favor of installing cameras in all homes that detects child abuse, murder, and rape in an automated fashion? It can use microphones to detect people in distress. This would prevent many more heinous crimes than what apple is proposing we do and it will only be used for detecting horrible acts.
By your logic this would be acceptable and we could all still claim to value privacy.
That said, camera's are already spreading pretty quickly (check out ring doorbell and friends) and homeowners are voluntarily registering these with local police departments.
So yes, people don't mind if they are recorded going into and out of their own house and voluntary let police review this footage.
Again, I think folks are overstating the "huge" damage to apple's brand.
People haven't had ring forced on them inside their homes yet.
Like I said in another comment, the principle is whether forcing surveillance on people to prevent crimes is ok. The set of technologies is irrelevant, Apple is going through personal information that has not been voluntarily shared with the public by the content owner to detect criminal activities. I don't see how that is different from installing microphones and cameras inside people's homes with the passive ability to detect crime. Why can't a landlord install this kind of technology in their tenant's apartments?
I don't think so. This is a case by case reasoning. There is no straight logic leads to jumping from scanning iCloud photos to installing cameras in homes.
By your logic this would be acceptable and we could all still claim to value privacy.