I have a modest suggestion in the spirit of Apple's move.
As we know, there are people in the world who are running meth labs or creating explosives for terrorists in their homes. In order to safeguard the public, we shall have a detachment of dogs which will sniff everyone's houses every once in a while. When they sense something bad they'll alert their handlers and there'll be a manual inspection before reporting to police.
There's no risk to privacy here - dogs being dogs can't tell their handlers what they sense. We can also show the training publicly so people can verify the iDogs are trained to only sense drugs or explosives. So it's all even more secure than Apple's iPhone scanning! What says you?
I understand you're making a reductio ad absurdum argument here, but this is actually very similar to what LEO often tries to do today (e.g. searches based on what is smelled / seen inside your car at a traffic stop) and actually iDog might be constitutional.
The constitutional standard for a warrant search is "probable cause", and for a warrantless search you generally also need exigent circumstances. Assuming that a judge is sufficiently satisfied with the iDog's nose, and the iDog was sniffing somewhere public like the sidewalk when it found the meth smell, you could likely establish both probable cause (iDog smells meth) and exigent circumstances (meth labs often blow up, meaning there's emergent danger that cannot risk waiting for a warrant).
That's not to excuse Apple, just to provide a fun backstory on the things law enforcement gets to do in this country.
Another one that was nearly deemed constitutional: in Kyllo v United States, LEOs used thermal imaging to find an Oregon man's house was radiating a high amount of heat indicative of intense grow lights, which they used as probable cause to search the home for an illegal pot growing operation. This was only found unconstitutional by a 5-4 decision in the supreme court. If it were found constitutional, you can imagine we'd have helicopters flying overhead thermal imaging for pot operations today.
That said, I do feel you miss the genius of the iDog proposal. As far as I understand, an officer might sometimes be able to use his dog's nose if it happens during a procedure (which might include the dog searching if there's a warrant), but he can't create the circumstances deliberately. 'I was doing something proper and then the dog started jumping' might be admissible, but if an officer started walking the dog around hoping to catch people opinion might be different.
We suggest regularly scanning every household in the nation in a deliberate process. I was just proofreading five different papers proving the system is perfect if we can trust the dogs (of course we can, only monsters and terrorists don't trust dogs).
Don't worry, these are well-trained, well-bred and very well-fed iDogs. 'Not eating when not fed by the handler' is part of the basic training. Also, there's a manual verification step where the handlers search your property before reporting to the police.
The chances of an error are less than a billion to one. It's worth it to beat the drug dealers and terrorists.
As we know, there are people in the world who are running meth labs or creating explosives for terrorists in their homes. In order to safeguard the public, we shall have a detachment of dogs which will sniff everyone's houses every once in a while. When they sense something bad they'll alert their handlers and there'll be a manual inspection before reporting to police.
There's no risk to privacy here - dogs being dogs can't tell their handlers what they sense. We can also show the training publicly so people can verify the iDogs are trained to only sense drugs or explosives. So it's all even more secure than Apple's iPhone scanning! What says you?