I think the difference is that the CEO of Apple isn't actively engaged in public divisive discourse on hot button issues.

Don't get me wrong, I actively dislike the breathless discourse without any analysis (apple is the privacy leader, ok great, prove it...)

I think people did, to some extent. "Not an apple fanboy, but..." is a sentence i've heard more than once. But apple's figurehead never made as much of a habit as acting publicly obnoxious, not even during the steve jobs days