The "flat denial" is in response to Apple's ability to "locate me" not "locate my iPhone." Elsewhere, Apple is very specifically making claims about the iPhone.
"Anonymous" is pretty slippery and there is no agreed upon technical definition (just ask EFF), but it literally means "not identified by name" so one could argue that sending tracking data based on your device serial number, IP address, phone number, location, contacts list, etc. is still in an "anonymous form." [somewhat similar to debates about the technical meaning of "open"].
I'll add that the information you are proposing to send to Apple is enough to clearly identify your location - or rather the location of the iPhone, and short of Apple using Tor or a similar approach to making the message's route through the network untraceable, the data in "anonymous form" can likely be disanonymized.
"Anonymous" is pretty slippery and there is no agreed upon technical definition (just ask EFF), but it literally means "not identified by name" so one could argue that sending tracking data based on your device serial number, IP address, phone number, location, contacts list, etc. is still in an "anonymous form." [somewhat similar to debates about the technical meaning of "open"].
I'll add that the information you are proposing to send to Apple is enough to clearly identify your location - or rather the location of the iPhone, and short of Apple using Tor or a similar approach to making the message's route through the network untraceable, the data in "anonymous form" can likely be disanonymized.