With these things, there is someone you can talk to that controls the service. If you lose access to your online bank account, then you can call up your bank and have them manually reset it. Since they have alternate trust channels for alternate ways of doing things, (you can check your balance and make transfers by phone in most cases) you can just reuse them to regain access. (God help you if you lose your Gmail account, though)
Apple's devices are fully in your control after you buy them. If you lose access to a perfectly working device then it's your own damn fault. It's your own damn fault in the other cases too, it's just that the nature of the services provided mean you can go also go through a person.
But if you buy a safe, lock it, and subsequently lose all normal access to it, don't bitch to me when you have to ruin it to get back in. It's just doing its job, and you failed to do yours. Suck it up, buy a new safe, and be more careful next time.
You obviously didn't read the article. This isn't an issue of someone losing their password and subsequently being locked out of their account --- something that Apple would help with. It was mom's iPad. She died. They don't have the pass code and/or iCloud password and Apple won't help them open that up. Sounds fair or unfair depending on your personal beliefs.
Having said that the article is a non-sensible emotional plea for sympathy at the expense of painting Apple as a cold-hearted villain. If they just want to be able to make use of the iPad it's simple to restore it using iTunes.
Apple's devices are fully in your control after you buy them. If you lose access to a perfectly working device then it's your own damn fault. It's your own damn fault in the other cases too, it's just that the nature of the services provided mean you can go also go through a person.
But if you buy a safe, lock it, and subsequently lose all normal access to it, don't bitch to me when you have to ruin it to get back in. It's just doing its job, and you failed to do yours. Suck it up, buy a new safe, and be more careful next time.