(unpaywalled version on archive.today: https://archive.ph/03cwZ)
Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren’t quite surprising, I guess it’s mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.
It’s actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.
“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? […] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”
ouch 😔
The idea that an iPhone is more secure or private is a farce you’ve been sold. It’s true that Google makes more money off of tracking behavior and selling ads but it’s absolutely laughable to believe Apple doesn’t do that also. They just focus their efforts more on entrapping you in an ecosystem where you don’t feel even able capable of giving another tech company money besides them. Need proof, look at the fact that lawmakers had to force them to use USBC. The excuse they gave for not doing it was flimsy af. They obviously were looking to keep profiting from their shitty lightning cables. Never once did the fact that it’s outlandishly inconvenient to need a different cable than your friends with Androids for charging your phone ever register as a factor for apple. Proprietary and overpriced. That’s the entire business model.
As someone with an android, and someone who worked in digital forensics, iPhones absolutely are more secure. It’s way harder to break into an iPhone.
I think part of what I’m reacting to is the “bragging to delivery” ratio. Google never brags about being the most secure OS, yet many people smarter than me point out ways it’s better than iOS.
The problem with that is you’re bunching so many phones together based on their OS when their security is dependent on more than that. I’ll admit I’m unaware of the current situation but Pixels for example have been more secure than the iPhone in the past and are still considered secure in general, no idea about how they compare to an iPhone.
Where I used to work, we had a massive digital library of android phones with confirmed exploits. They went up to quite recent phones and OS versions. The android team wasn’t particularly big because there wasn’t a major need for manpower to keep up. The iPhone team was highly specialized and had their work cut out for them. I wasn’t on either team (Windows and sort-of OS X) but I fell into their meetings and wikis quite often due to platform overlaps.
And the latest and greatest wasn’t necessarily what was getting attention anyway. Plenty of people worldwide use old phones
Hmm, I’ve also heard the opposite kind of – at least from an exploit patching perspective a lot of people claim Google fixes the security holes much quicker. But admittedly I’m sure you know a lot more about this than I. I’m relying on secondhand information
google for all its faults seems much more open about security. Apple is a marketing company that tangentially makes hardware. Its good hardware, but its still tangential.
pegasus
monocultures are at risk to a single vulnerability, you don’t need more than 1