ElCapitan

The lawsuit is 100% appropriate.

Apple has given the public the impression they store data in their own datacenters, and as Apple provides these services around the planet and customers in different countries should be informed where their data actually is stored so they can make informed decisions if they want to use the service or not.  It probably also has lead customers to believe they got an increased level of privacy (as spouted by Apple marketing), when in reality they got closer to Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft base level. If I knew my iCloud data was stored on Google servers, I would have ended the iCloud subscription immediately. 

But of course for ex-Compaq Tim Cook, he don't see the difference.

Europe is not one single market as there are 50 countries with over 225 indigenous languages. Most of these countries and languages don't see a single shred of Apple marketing. In addition there is significant differences in price sensitivity between countries.

Equally there are probably minimum 3 times as many major operators as there are countries, and these will to a much larger extent use Android based handsets to differentiate their offerings in their region than what is possible with the few Apple handset models to chose from.

With the significant price hike Apple did last year, the effect of VAT kicks customers right in their pocket, and add to that currency fluctuations amplifying Apple's base (US) price increase. 

As was mentioned above, many of the services offerings Apple tout at their product presentations simply don't exist in any European market, perhaps with the exception of the UK. This is never reflected in lower prices, and may for many feel as a complete rip-off or broken promises.

Finally much of Apple's BS virtual signaling does not fly with European customers. In the LGBT area large sections of Europe made these reforms and freedoms 25 years ago, and listening to it from Apple management gets very old or now irrelevant. At the other side of the coin, the message does not fly at all in Eastern Europe and in the many predominantly Muslim markets in the East.

Also Apple's marketing focus on US holidays and events does likewise not fly, simply because most of these are completely irrelevant to the European customer base. They celebrate a plethora of national and religious holidays and events that are not at all based in the US "shopping" seasons. So the timing for sales (as if Apple ever had one) and campaigns may therefore miss spectacularly. 

"featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters" - hopefully not in the same conversation.

SpamSandwich said:

It’s unacceptable that Apple should be caught so unprepared when this President made his intentions very clear about trade with China before and after the election. Apple should’ve been making plans for alternative suppliers and had those plans in place by now. It’s just plain tunnel vision.

They probably (also) bet on a different outcome of the "disaster" that unfolded a couple days back...

There is another alternative: Redesign the damned thing with parts that both can be sourced in the US, and at the same time make the machine more flexible in terms of entry configs (that many have requested), and to use standard memory, disk and graphics cards more readily available. That would also broaden the market for it.