Yes, it was supposed to have a sequel. It was the start of a franchise that never became one. The OP of the OP is not wrong in saying it was a setup and wanted a sequel. The difference of this movie versus the slop of other sequels is this one was made to be one. It wasn’t based on some one-off movie that did well, so the studio demanded a followup to milk it for more money. From its inception this movie was supposed to have one.
This article is written with some wild speculations by both the author of the article and the source they are quoting. When cell phones are cracked for evidence they have to use write blockers when they copy the phone. They do the analysis on the copy. The original is then re-copied in court to show what was found. This way the original is never tampered with and made inadmissible, and whatever analysis bullshit you did isn’t mixed in with your court room copy. What this also means is that your AI can hallucinate all it wants and make up any evidence you can imagine all day long, but when you get into the court room and have to then point to where the conclusions came from and you can’t-you will be standing there with a dick on your forehead and with a case being tossed out.