On their newer models, yes, there are hardware-based protections.
The guy in this case didn't have the newest model iPhone; he has an older 5C which is at least theoretically vulnerable to Apple being forced to push a bad software update to it.
It's hard not to see the effects of these things showing up in the way they design each successive generation of iPhones; each time, they add something which gives them more ways to say "nope, technically impossible to do what that court just ordered us to do".
The guy in this case didn't have the newest model iPhone; he has an older 5C which is at least theoretically vulnerable to Apple being forced to push a bad software update to it.
It's hard not to see the effects of these things showing up in the way they design each successive generation of iPhones; each time, they add something which gives them more ways to say "nope, technically impossible to do what that court just ordered us to do".