Re: Hmmmm...
Not quite, but Blackberry and iPhone both run through a single supplier and are both pretty well tied-in to the US.
It'd be a LOT easier to foster a relationship with Apple and RIM on this front than with HTC, Samsung AND Nokia- the major Android suppliers, none of whom are even based on the same landmass as the FBI- and would be far less risky than getting Google to build it into their base Android build (it's relatively-open-source so it could be found and exposed, or just expunged as 'malware').
On a personal note, I'd just like to cry "Down With This Sort Of Thing!". As telecoms data is available from the infrastructure suppliers (who will also provide convenient wiretapping systems), and they apparently don't use this approach with those sufficiently tech-savvy to be encrypting data properly prior to transmission (or if they do it's just for the transmission, with the data stored unencrypted elsewhere), this is clearly just a way of circumventing the requirements for a wiretap warrant. If they wanted to capture data BEFORE it was transmitted over the internet (passwords etc), that'd be a much more reasonable use-case.
I'd also like to ask why permission for the modification of a suspect's property- especially when this requires equipment that is otherwise very much illegal and may cause the suspect- is easier to come by than tapping into comms they're freely blasting out over a wire.