In terms of security alone, iPhones easily beat most Android phones. Which may be a fair argument in favor of iPhones. However, to ignore Apple’s policies and long history of delisting similar apps is delusional.
In regards to security, Apple does have three upsides, and only those:
No sideloading and no unlocked bootloader means you can’t sideload malware or install malware-preloaded ROMs. No root also means you can’t just install malware that uses root access.
Long OS support means fewer people run around with iPhones that are 5 OS versions behind.
There’s no tiny boutique iPhone manufacturers who sell phones that come pre-loaded with malware.
The solution for the first one is “don’t sideload untrusted stuff” and the solution to the second and third one is “buy an Android phone from a trusted manufacturer that has long term OS support”.
No sideloading and no unlocked bootloader means you can’t sideload malware or install malware-preloaded ROMs
It’s a simple configuration change to disable it and can be done with any corporate MDM system, making this a moot point. Not to mention too many people don’t understand security, so Android is taking away sideloading anyway, FoR sEcUriTY
No root also means you can’t just install malware that uses root access
The vast majority of Android phones do not come with root access. For both, you generally have to elevate access yourself
Long OS support means fewer people run around with iPhones that are 5 OS versions behind
If you’re running an out-of-date OS, clearly security is not a priority
There’s no tiny boutique iPhone manufacturers who sell phones that come pre-loaded with malware
Supply chain attacks absolutely can happen to iPhones as well. There are plenty of re-sellers
You missed the actual security benefit over iOS that Android cannot compete with: Apple controls the entire software chain from security patch to OTA update. This allows them to patch and release a fix for critical vulnerabilities far faster than any Android device possibly could. Apple does not need to get the approval of an OEM (such as Samsung), and, due to special deals, they do not need to get the approval of a carrier (like Verizon). Android devices typically need to get approvals from both before releasing updates (although Google flagship phones can bypass one, and can fast track the other)
The downside there is there are no checks on Apple. They could release a horribly vulnerable patch with no additional checks in-between
You don’t seem to get my point and seem to think that I’m some apple fanboy that you need to convince or win against.
I use android, I’ve never used iOS. I enjoy the freedom of sideloading. Still it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of malware infections on Android happen due to side loading. The percentage of devices running corporate MDM is tiny, making this a moot point.
The vast majority of Android phones do not come with root access. For both, you generally have to elevate access yourself
And yet quite a few devices in the wild run rooted or custom ROMs.
If you’re running an out-of-date OS, clearly security is not a priority
You seem to forget what this thread is about. It’s not about personal security and whether one can run a safe android device, but about an app developer not providing an Android version, because the platform as a whole (meaning the average user) is less secure.
Personal preferences like paying for a new, non-outdated phone don’t really matter for that big picture view.
Supply chain attacks absolutely can happen to iPhones as well. There are plenty of re-sellers
That’s a strange argument. Getting malware that survives a factory reset onto an iPhone without apple’s approval is close to impossible. Making an Android phone from scratch that contains malware right in the system image has been done over and over again. You are argueing a hypothetical versus something that happens every day.
Long os support meant to intentionally brick your iphone so you buy new. That is 100% true as I had many apple products started degrading after upgrade and still have old models that are not upgraded and work perfectly
I’m not defending apple here. Short OS support (or none at all) is not a good thing, and it’s something that’s sadly still quite common if you buy the wrong Android brand.
Samsung is doing pretty well in that regard right now.
Sorry, didn’t think I had to clarify it. Long support is good IF has good intentions behind it. Most long supported os has bad intentions behind it as making old models inferior and unusable as in case with ios on iphone 5. For example in my opinion windows xp was THE best windows, maybe on par with seven.
So if you give me two options, first is updating my phone so it becomes laggy and unusable or keep current version, I will choose to stay on old OS.
Most long supported os has bad intentions behind it as making old models inferior and unusable as in case with ios on iphone 5.
Your evidence is an iPhone that came out 13 years ago last month? Back in those days, the year over year improvements in the hardware were immense, and the software tried to take advantage of it. But people would complain, A Lot, if those features didn’t come to their older device. Do you remember how much folks lost their mind when the iPhone 4 came out and iOS 4 allowed it and the 3GS to have a home screen wallpaper, but not the iPhone 3G? People were pissed and called it “planned obsolescence” that it didn’t get the feature. So, when the iPhone 4 hit iOS 7, they included all the animations. And then people called it planned obsolescence that it stuttered.
It really depends on what your goal is. Usability, keeping a familiar interface, performance, all of that are things that make it reasonable to stay on an outdated OS, and none of these reasons are bad.
Security (which is the only thing we are really talking about here) does require updates.
If security is your most important concern, you need to update. If security is not your biggest concern and other topics are more important for you, it might be reasonable to stay on older versions.
But in the context of this post, which was purely about security, having long term security updates is important.
Based on most smartphones being very insecure. Of course, iPhones aren’t extremely secure, but the competition is practically nonexistent. Pretty much the only secure Android phones are Pixels. Samsung is considered one of the more secure manufacturers too, but according to GrapheneOS devs it’s still way behind Google.
Note that even police and government agencies sometimes have trouble getting into iPhones. They never have such troubles getting into Android smartphones, except Pixels.
This is by no means meant to advertise iPhones. It’s just a simple observation that security in smartphones is heavily lacking.
Both iPhones and Android phones can be configured to your desired security level. Both are used by various government agencies around the world for their most important secrets. Neither are secure out of the box. You have to harden them to your desired level of security
Arguing whether Android or iOS is more secure is a bit like arguing whether an SUV or pickup is safer. It doesn’t matter which you pick when basic security steps are magnitudes more important: Wearing a safety belt, having a functioning air bag, driving a safe speed, not driving drunk, etc.
In terms of security alone, iPhones easily beat most Android phones
That’s not how security works in the modern tech landscape. No major OS is going to meet a high security standard out of the box. All of them have to be configured to the desired security level, then be added to ongoing security efforts. Every major OS can be secured to the highest security standards
The primary difference is how much effort each takes, but even then there isn’t much of a difference. You’ll find tooling and in-house expertise makes a much larger difference than the OS
The myth that some OS are inherently secure really needs to die off
Every major OS can be secured to the highest security standards
Has Android added E2EE to their cloud backups yet like Apple has?
Apple is no friend to any of us, but Google openly and shamelessly scrapes every piece of data you put on their phones. Apple is absolutely the lesser of these two evils with out of the box functionality. I say this as a lifelong Android fan and Apple hater that entered the cybersecurity space and am only interested in the most private option I can get out of the box.
Like an Android can be more secure and private than an IPhone, but afaik that involves owning a Pixel specifically and installing an entirely different OS on it, one that Google a
Is also out to get.
You do know that Apple privately scrapes every piece of data you put on their phones right? Go read the privacy and ad policies. Apple also gives access to a lot of their users private information (China has full access to its users iCloud), will remove apps like this (while Google still allows apps that block ad trackers like DuckDuckGo that block Google own trackers). And Google supports CSE.
We get it from your post, your a huge and blind Apple fan that wants to do anything you can to confuse others into believing falsely like you that Apple is somehow a great company and product. But the truth is, Apple doesn’t care about your privacy, lies to your face about it, and makes you less secure and your information less private as these situations show. And if you were in cybersecurity, you’d know this.
I’m not much of an Apple fan, I just like to get my privacy where I can. And with over a decade of experience in cybersecurity I can confidently say that as much as you shouldn’t blindly trust Apple, they at least give you a number of tools to increase your privacy out of the box.
Android on the other hand is a nightmarish hellscape of data mining and user profiling. There is GrapheneOS which is as of today a great option to circumvent Google’s data mining, but now that its future is at stake I worry for the future of privacy on Android devices.
But we get it from your post, you’re a pro-Google shill bot that didn’t actually read my comment and is just regurgitating nonsense to muddy the waters.
I’ll just back up what I said with real links and not “trust me bro”.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ Apple collects in real time info about you like “Your name, address, age, gender… your approximate location (when turned on, kinda needed for many functions so pretty much everyone does)” I could go on.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111754 Apple explaining that yeah, they give the Chinese government full access to Chinese iCloud users. You know who actually cared about their users privacy and didn’t do that, preventing them from selling in China? Google.
Just because I was able to call you out and prove you wrong, doesn’t mean I’m a shill. The fact you just doubled down on your mis-information does out you as the shill though.
Just calling them out. A lot of the things they’ve said are either incorrect or contradicts other parts they’ve said. I called out the easier parts but then there are the more subtle parts that I didn’t bother with yet.
They are following the usual “Oh, I’m huge into A and an expert, but B really is better and we all have to agree. Trust me bro”.
A lot of the things they’ve said are either incorrect or contradicts other parts they’ve said.
I mean, their entire argument was that Apple is more private and more secure. So if you think that’s incorrect, you therefore must believe Stock Android is more private and more secure, no?
In terms of security alone, iPhones easily beat most Android phones. Which may be a fair argument in favor of iPhones. However, to ignore Apple’s policies and long history of delisting similar apps is delusional.
In regards to security, Apple does have three upsides, and only those:
The solution for the first one is “don’t sideload untrusted stuff” and the solution to the second and third one is “buy an Android phone from a trusted manufacturer that has long term OS support”.
It’s a simple configuration change to disable it and can be done with any corporate MDM system, making this a moot point. Not to mention too many people don’t understand security, so Android is taking away sideloading anyway, FoR sEcUriTY
The vast majority of Android phones do not come with root access. For both, you generally have to elevate access yourself
If you’re running an out-of-date OS, clearly security is not a priority
Supply chain attacks absolutely can happen to iPhones as well. There are plenty of re-sellers
You missed the actual security benefit over iOS that Android cannot compete with: Apple controls the entire software chain from security patch to OTA update. This allows them to patch and release a fix for critical vulnerabilities far faster than any Android device possibly could. Apple does not need to get the approval of an OEM (such as Samsung), and, due to special deals, they do not need to get the approval of a carrier (like Verizon). Android devices typically need to get approvals from both before releasing updates (although Google flagship phones can bypass one, and can fast track the other)
The downside there is there are no checks on Apple. They could release a horribly vulnerable patch with no additional checks in-between
You don’t seem to get my point and seem to think that I’m some apple fanboy that you need to convince or win against.
I use android, I’ve never used iOS. I enjoy the freedom of sideloading. Still it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of malware infections on Android happen due to side loading. The percentage of devices running corporate MDM is tiny, making this a moot point.
And yet quite a few devices in the wild run rooted or custom ROMs.
You seem to forget what this thread is about. It’s not about personal security and whether one can run a safe android device, but about an app developer not providing an Android version, because the platform as a whole (meaning the average user) is less secure.
Personal preferences like paying for a new, non-outdated phone don’t really matter for that big picture view.
That’s a strange argument. Getting malware that survives a factory reset onto an iPhone without apple’s approval is close to impossible. Making an Android phone from scratch that contains malware right in the system image has been done over and over again. You are argueing a hypothetical versus something that happens every day.
Long os support meant to intentionally brick your iphone so you buy new. That is 100% true as I had many apple products started degrading after upgrade and still have old models that are not upgraded and work perfectly
I’m not defending apple here. Short OS support (or none at all) is not a good thing, and it’s something that’s sadly still quite common if you buy the wrong Android brand.
Samsung is doing pretty well in that regard right now.
In other words do not confuse long support with good support as these are totally different things
Sorry, didn’t think I had to clarify it. Long support is good IF has good intentions behind it. Most long supported os has bad intentions behind it as making old models inferior and unusable as in case with ios on iphone 5. For example in my opinion windows xp was THE best windows, maybe on par with seven. So if you give me two options, first is updating my phone so it becomes laggy and unusable or keep current version, I will choose to stay on old OS.
Your evidence is an iPhone that came out 13 years ago last month? Back in those days, the year over year improvements in the hardware were immense, and the software tried to take advantage of it. But people would complain, A Lot, if those features didn’t come to their older device. Do you remember how much folks lost their mind when the iPhone 4 came out and iOS 4 allowed it and the 3GS to have a home screen wallpaper, but not the iPhone 3G? People were pissed and called it “planned obsolescence” that it didn’t get the feature. So, when the iPhone 4 hit iOS 7, they included all the animations. And then people called it planned obsolescence that it stuttered.
It really depends on what your goal is. Usability, keeping a familiar interface, performance, all of that are things that make it reasonable to stay on an outdated OS, and none of these reasons are bad.
Security (which is the only thing we are really talking about here) does require updates.
If security is your most important concern, you need to update. If security is not your biggest concern and other topics are more important for you, it might be reasonable to stay on older versions.
But in the context of this post, which was purely about security, having long term security updates is important.
Always funny watching apple users think they know something.
pinches cheek
You say that based on what?
Based on most smartphones being very insecure. Of course, iPhones aren’t extremely secure, but the competition is practically nonexistent. Pretty much the only secure Android phones are Pixels. Samsung is considered one of the more secure manufacturers too, but according to GrapheneOS devs it’s still way behind Google.
Note that even police and government agencies sometimes have trouble getting into iPhones. They never have such troubles getting into Android smartphones, except Pixels.
This is by no means meant to advertise iPhones. It’s just a simple observation that security in smartphones is heavily lacking.
So based on marketing.
You fell for the propaganda marketed as truth.
Both iPhones and Android phones can be configured to your desired security level. Both are used by various government agencies around the world for their most important secrets. Neither are secure out of the box. You have to harden them to your desired level of security
Arguing whether Android or iOS is more secure is a bit like arguing whether an SUV or pickup is safer. It doesn’t matter which you pick when basic security steps are magnitudes more important: Wearing a safety belt, having a functioning air bag, driving a safe speed, not driving drunk, etc.
Dude give one example so we can google and have our own opinion. You are just saying “because they said so/because someone considered it so”.
Look up grapheneos’s reasoning
Removed by mod
That’s not how security works in the modern tech landscape. No major OS is going to meet a high security standard out of the box. All of them have to be configured to the desired security level, then be added to ongoing security efforts. Every major OS can be secured to the highest security standards
The primary difference is how much effort each takes, but even then there isn’t much of a difference. You’ll find tooling and in-house expertise makes a much larger difference than the OS
The myth that some OS are inherently secure really needs to die off
Has Android added E2EE to their cloud backups yet like Apple has?
Apple is no friend to any of us, but Google openly and shamelessly scrapes every piece of data you put on their phones. Apple is absolutely the lesser of these two evils with out of the box functionality. I say this as a lifelong Android fan and Apple hater that entered the cybersecurity space and am only interested in the most private option I can get out of the box.
Like an Android can be more secure and private than an IPhone, but afaik that involves owning a Pixel specifically and installing an entirely different OS on it, one that Google a Is also out to get.
You do know that Apple privately scrapes every piece of data you put on their phones right? Go read the privacy and ad policies. Apple also gives access to a lot of their users private information (China has full access to its users iCloud), will remove apps like this (while Google still allows apps that block ad trackers like DuckDuckGo that block Google own trackers). And Google supports CSE.
We get it from your post, your a huge and blind Apple fan that wants to do anything you can to confuse others into believing falsely like you that Apple is somehow a great company and product. But the truth is, Apple doesn’t care about your privacy, lies to your face about it, and makes you less secure and your information less private as these situations show. And if you were in cybersecurity, you’d know this.
I’m not much of an Apple fan, I just like to get my privacy where I can. And with over a decade of experience in cybersecurity I can confidently say that as much as you shouldn’t blindly trust Apple, they at least give you a number of tools to increase your privacy out of the box.
Android on the other hand is a nightmarish hellscape of data mining and user profiling. There is GrapheneOS which is as of today a great option to circumvent Google’s data mining, but now that its future is at stake I worry for the future of privacy on Android devices.
But we get it from your post, you’re a pro-Google shill bot that didn’t actually read my comment and is just regurgitating nonsense to muddy the waters.
I’ll just back up what I said with real links and not “trust me bro”.
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertising/ Apple collects in real time info about you like “Your name, address, age, gender… your approximate location (when turned on, kinda needed for many functions so pretty much everyone does)” I could go on.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111754 Apple explaining that yeah, they give the Chinese government full access to Chinese iCloud users. You know who actually cared about their users privacy and didn’t do that, preventing them from selling in China? Google.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duckduckgo.mobile.android&pli=1 Book ad tracking on Android from all apps. Notice that it’s on the Play Store? Where is the equal to it on Apple’s App Store?
https://support.google.com/a/answer/14328489?hl=en Gooe built in CSE.
Just because I was able to call you out and prove you wrong, doesn’t mean I’m a shill. The fact you just doubled down on your mis-information does out you as the shill though.
Are you making the argument that Stock Android is more private and more secure?
Just calling them out. A lot of the things they’ve said are either incorrect or contradicts other parts they’ve said. I called out the easier parts but then there are the more subtle parts that I didn’t bother with yet.
They are following the usual “Oh, I’m huge into A and an expert, but B really is better and we all have to agree. Trust me bro”.
I mean, their entire argument was that Apple is more private and more secure. So if you think that’s incorrect, you therefore must believe Stock Android is more private and more secure, no?