It’s all about testing how far they can go and what they can get away with and tying things up in legal recourse for as long as possible. They know they’ll have to comply eventually but they will drag their feet a good while more. Dumb compliance, malicious compliance, expect them to try everything. They don’t really want to do this but can’t come outright and say it.

See also how Meta was told to stop collecting people’s data and what did they do — they offered people a choice between paying a monthly fee and giving up their data willingly. It’s this kind of devious compliance you can expect from Apple too.