Why are iPhones considered better for privacy/security?

c86

These guys do a lot of security research and development towards Apple and are on my feeds along with GOS devs

spiral

Face ID seems much more secure than fingerprint, in my opinion.

One example: your Pixel secured by fingerprint could be unlocked by fingerprint while you're asleep (or even after you've passed away), whereas Face ID on iPhone is set by default to require the user to look directly at the phone for it to unlock, making it much less likely to be unlocked without your explicit consent.

Of course, this is why GoS gives us the option to secure the fingerprint with a secondary passcode, which as far as I can tell mitigates the above scenarios.

CalmBird

This article linked by madaidan was also quite informative: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2017/03/05/secure-computing-for-journalists/.

grayway2

Lilac6044 i don't know for you but I have zero trust in Face ID. I tried it and sometimes you unlock the phone when you don't really want it.

Fingerprint without second factor pin is also dangerous.

One of the biggest threat is kids. They are literally grabbing your hand and fingers and try to unlock your phone. No prior warning.

phone-company

If you've ever been in a war, you know face ID would kill you by night

Usul

I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 9 Pro and iOS (26 beta) on an iPhone 16 Pro. Although iOS is considered better in terms of privacy, there are some use cases that pose problems for me :

It is known that iOS bypasses VPNs (is this also the case with Graphene OS? I don't know).
VPNs like Proton or Mullvad do not have split tunneling on iOS. My banking app does not work when a VPN is active on iOS... and since there is no split tunneling, I have to disable the VPN if i want to connect to my bank account. By doing so, all other applications running in the background are left exposed without a VPN.

userofgos

Usul have you tried using private space without VPN for banking apps? It works great for me.

Usul

userofgos Private space on iOS ? (of course it works on GrapheneOS).

userofgos

Usul ah I glazed over that part lol. When I was on iOS I didn't have to turn off my VPN for my banking apps.

DeletedUser421

CalmBird I’m guessing that they can at least fix flaws faster, because they wont have to wait for Qualcomm to send out security updates. I assume that’s how it works most of the time, but I don’t know for sure.

I imagine that their switch away from Broadcom WiFi will have a larger impact, because all iPhone 17 models and iPads will supposedly switch to Apple WiFi, whereas only 17 Air will get the Apple C1 modem.

n3t_admin

Okay, now I feel like I need to chime in.

As an iPhone user (I don't run GOS anymore), let me tell you this:

iOS (Apple devices in general) have nothing to do with privacy. Security, yes. But they are far from being private.

Examples? Sure.

You can't disable apps. They can run at all times and collect or send data in the background.
There are no profiles (this ties into my prior point). You can't isolate apps or put them to sleep by putting a profile to sleep. All IPC is gonna continue, no matter what.

Their advertising on app tracking transparency is also misleading.

You have no alternatives for Apple's push service. No UnifiedPush available. You can't even decide to omit an app from Apple's notification system. It will register nonetheless.

You have way less permissions and therefore way less fine-tuning.
The ability to turn off NFC or complete internet access for an app only exists in just a few select countries (I think it's just China actually).
You can't prevent most Apple services from talking to Apple, otherwise functionality inside the OS might break.
DNS requests made by Apple devices are vast and numerous. They easily outdo a GOS device by 10 times. What all that communication to Apple is needed for? Don't know. No documentation.

Data collection inside the App Store and some other apps is creepy. I had a takeout of my data; there's so much (unnecessary) data collected while you're unaware of it. Dating back 15 years, when I got my first iPod touch.

You are tied to the App Store, so Apple is guaranteed KYC for every app you install. This also ties into the problematic political landscape they face, where they ban VPN apps in certain countries or let the CCP have their own iCloud servers.
And if countries decide to ban E2EE, Apple will cave in, removing the option like it just happened in the UK. With no real alternatives for cloud backups (or general cloud integration), you are SOL.

Due to developer fees and the general Apple culture, FOSS apps are pretty rare. Only developers who scale (Nextcloud, Brave, Signal) can afford to have their apps in the App Store. Other FOSS devs stay away. Alternative app stores in the EU have changed nothing about that situation.

That's just a few points that should dissuade you from blindly trusting their marketing claims.
Half of the shit they market as "private" is also present exactly like that for their competition. Bragging how 10% of your portfolio is E2EE by default is actually cringe.
I know my iPhone isn't private and that's simply not part of my threat model.
I'm not even starting on possible backdoors and security problems (and how they are handled) in Apples OS'es.

If you care about privacy, you are better off with a GOS phone. Like actually WAY better.

becomeparmesan

n3t_admin this is a good distinction to make. In my company, iPhones are given as company phones. Pretty sure due to their security. And as Apple has rather based it's business on selling hardware, while Google sells mainly services (often free = collecting and selling data), it is more likely the data of iPhones stays with Apple rather than shared with others.

Blastoidea

My feeling is that if you choose “convenience” over security and privacy, you really need to rethink your situation.

WestQuester

Blastoidea Everyone has some threshold of tradeoffs. The most secure and private is to not have a phone at all, but everyone here has chosen "convenience" in this instance. Google play services is another level of tradeoffs. Google Messages for RCS messaging is another tradeoff.

Few consider maximizing security and privacy to be the optimal tradeoff, and that's fine. That's an individual choice.

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