Reinstalling the OS sucks. I need to pull all my bank cards out of my safe and re-add their CVV's to the wallet, and sometimes authenticate over the phone. And re-register my face. And log back in to all my apps. It can take an hour or so, except it's spread out over weeks as I open an app and realize I need to log in a dozen times.
There was a magical period. I suspect it ended with the introduction of the Secure Enclave. But maybe it was a little later.
An encrypted iTunes backup of a device was a perfect image. Take the backup, pull the SIM card, restore the backup to a new phone with the sim card installed, and it was like nothing had happened.
No reauthentication. No missing notifications. No lost data. Ever.
Because I’m saying the threat vector you used to justify it is not an issue for me at all, so it’s a baseless justification for “security”, ergo, theatre.
That's still not theater though. Annoying? Yes, quite! But according to the definition:
> Security theater is the practice of implementing security measures that are considered to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to achieve it.[1][2]
Adding additional security to something that doesn’t need security is basically doing this by definition. It’s adding nothing because nothing was needed. So yes, theatre.
