[a fool in paradise]

My understanding is that the government is asking for a firmware (internal software update) to remove the self-destruct component of the code (10 failed password attempts kill the phone/data). Can Apple deploy code to a phone that is turned ‘off’?

The government isn’t asking for help cracking the password/code itself to get into the phone or to extract the data and crack the encryption.

The self-destruct mechanism ‘destroys evidence’.

Did the developers ever have a method to reset the count or did they ‘brick’ a ton of phones while in development?

[palmer]

or did they `brick' a ton of phones

Destroying the decryption key does not brick the phone.