No, you're misstating the case.
There is no back door. Apple can't change a few lines of code, recompile, and suddenly have a back door. If they did, their product would have been a reeking pile of shit before the recompile.
Do some research on "strong encryption". If Apple lets the customer generate a component of the key, then there's nothing that Apple can do to suddenly decrypt the data.
Maybe Apple could somehow do something about the "10 retries only" issue, but that's about it.
But the only attack available is a brute force attack, and the 13th Amendment bans involuntary servitude.
Other than complying with record requests and the like, the government can't force the Apple into some kind of corporate slavery...
I am not going to argue with you over the meaning of the term "back door." Disabling the limited number of tries, and disabling the time delay between tries will allow the phone to be "unlocked" through the "brute force" method, and a D@mn I do not give what people want to call it.
Let's see. To stop a loop from counting to 10? How many instruction changes would that require? How about "1."
To eliminate a time delay between tries? How many instruction changes would that require. Again i'll say "1."
Easy peasy.