Privacy and security in 2023: iOS vs. Android

I don't think Android has ATT though, which is I think a big privacy driver. As for security, it's hard to say - Android devices come in many different variants, so you might get one that's very well written and secure, and you might not. AOSP itself is pretty secure, but the 3rd party drivers and like everything you put in /vendor and /device are where the insecurities may creep in.

sakete said:

What's ATT?

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App(or Ad?) tracking transparency. Basically disallows tracking across apps, and iOS basically has it default on.

I think the answer depends on your level of tech savvy. I’d argue that it’s easier for a relative security novice to stay extremely (but not perfectly) private and secure on an Apple device by just using the defaults. And the learning curve to turn on a few additional security measures like iCloud Private Relay is low.

That’s not to say that an experienced user couldn’t achieve the same or better privacy and security in Android. But easy matters.

You're also fighting an uphill battle the whole time on Android, vs a downhill one on iOS. Google is fiscally incentivized to collect so the pressure moves that way. Apple is marketing privacy as a differentiator, so pressure moves that way.

ant1pathy said:

You're also fighting an uphill battle the whole time on Android, vs a downhill one on iOS. Google is fiscally incentivized to collect so the pressure moves that way. Apple is marketing privacy as a differentiator, so pressure moves that way.

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You can cut Google out entirely on Android though. Whereas you're stuck with Apple on iOS.

sakete said:

I also find it weird that in iOS you have to dive deep into the menu to fully disable Wifi/Bluetooth/Location. The toggles in the pull-down only temporarily disable it (still don't understand the rationale for that). Those are also privacy risks.

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I wasn't aware of a location services toggle in the pull-down menu, but Bluetooth and Wifi make perfect sense, and I use them all the time.

Their function is to disconnect from whatever you're connected to right now, and stay disconnected — for now.

If you actually switch off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and turn them back on, Wi-Fi will immediately reconnect to whatever it was connected to. If the point was to disconnect from that network but still keep, say, Airdrop working, or just have it auto-connect to a different network for that day, then the toggle does exactly what you need.

My use case is onstage, where my machines will auto-connect to the wifi network setup for in-ear monitoring. Usually, the iPad handles that chore, but occasionally, I'll have the iPhone on, as well. So dropping the iPhone off that network with the toggle and having it connected, instead, to the venue's backstage wi-fi is a regular thing.

This is one of those answers where the real answer kinda really is "it depends".

when it comes to marketing, apples is way better at it, full stop. and this effects things in the way things are perceived. like, apple collects just as much as google does they are just better at it. also, they get copys of what others collect. namely sknetworks, which is a huge collector. and apple gets copys of that data, and they can say they didnt collect it.,

apple also, has real metadata and IPs, to usernames and locations of every iphone in real time. and unlike, android, its very hard if not impossible to do anything about it, sure you can flip off some stuff, and use alais's etc.

securitywise, apple does a decent job, but the clean ecosystem works against them also, an exploit that works on ios tends to work everywhere. apple does not make things easy for security products, and there own stuff just sucks, xprotect etc is just bad.

google, collects period. and they admit they they are doing it. also, they are not great at it, so the volume of data seems alot but the metadata types are less then what apple collects. seems google collects by silo, and apple just has a single collection and shares that to which ever product or process needs it. google seems to have each product or process collect what it needs, and I am sure on the backend they get merged somewhere or somehow.

androids kinda like windows way flexible, runs on many hardware types. and defaults are not great. but, has lots of potential if you put the time in. tools like ADB, and 3rd party roms like graphaneOS can really make an android much much better.

apple, is like a full product and full ecosystem, and they decide what and how and thats it. that gives them a much better way of testing and development targets. so sure they have tools like lockdown mode, and adp which really can help. but still...

nowadays, your picking an ecosystem just as much as your picking hardware. security wise, google is actually pretty decent at it.
its the trust and privacy where people have most of there issue, and the thing is.. most people will STILL use google products on there iphones...

personally, i think apples just as shady as google they just are way better at hiding and presenting themself.