> The "Apple Critical Alerts" API is clearly intended as a replacement channel for cellular emergency alerts
I don't see how it is "clearly intended" for this purpose, and nothing seems to be indicating that.
Apple's own applications use it for a lot of things that are not at all related to those large-scale alerts, and so do many other applications. Their critical alerts API is just about bypassing the silent mode when needed.
You say it yourself, there is another system for large-scale alerts, which is unrelated to Apple.
I don't see how it is "clearly intended" for this purpose, and nothing seems to be indicating that.
Apple's own applications use it for a lot of things that are not at all related to those large-scale alerts, and so do many other applications. Their critical alerts API is just about bypassing the silent mode when needed.
You say it yourself, there is another system for large-scale alerts, which is unrelated to Apple.