iOS vs GOS

Dragon

n3t_admin coming to a country near you soon.

Is that trademarked or can I use it for non commercial messages...

n3t_admin Would my bank 2FA work? I don't know.

So you never even went to the step of installing your apps and you say it's "too much of a hassle"? What the fuck.

lol, Didn't even search the web?

N1b Good point. Apple takes a lot of money every year to allow Google track iPhone users. Then turns around and claims "iPhone = privacy" to their user base, even hiding the true privacy policy behind a nice marketing page of not legally binding claims.

This is legally binding? [https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/]

secrec I can't think of a single valid reason. Some may talk about security, but I refuse to trust anything if I can't actually READ THE CODE. Without source code, the only thing you have to go on for trust is THEIR WORD, and their word means absolutely NOTHING to me.

Within a threat model, when even running GOS can be a threat iOS would be preferred.

N1b

Dragon yes, I'm talking https://www.apple.com/privacy/ vs https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

Which one do you think is easier to find, easier to read and higher ranked in search engines, while the other is the actual one? None of that's illegal of course, but for me this looks like deception and dark patterns.

But honestly, it was not my main point. Apple is simply not private, but a data hoarding big tech company just like Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. The main difference is that they hide/gaslight it much better, which makes them even more dangerous to a degree. I recommend this video which goes into more details.

However, Apple does a lot of good things in other departments as mentioned. If people choose iOS over GOS for any reason other than privacy, it's easy to understand and agree with.

secrec

Dragon This is legally binding?

As long as you trust their word (I trust nobody), AND some government doesn't override them (high probability).

secrec

Dragon Within a threat model, when even running GOS can be a threat iOS would be preferred.

That's a pretty messed up threat model, and if you're in that strict of a threat, apple DEFINITELY can't be trusted, so I'd have to disagree with you on that. Also a simple solution is a duress mode that can wipe not just the userdata partition, but the OS partitions as well.

Pocketstar

Over the years I improved my view on Apple, and they have great hardware, but I would never be able to live with the closed software which Apple has alot of external control over, I want to be able to attent a protest knowing TOR or a VPN app would still be there at my location. (Even though, the country I live in they don't stifle protesters that way (yet). (I was formerly referring to the Hong-Kong protests where Apple had limited access to certain apps that could anonymize the protesters)
But if they would have the source code opened up, who knows?
For others it may be a good choice, depending on their threat-level, but GrapheneOS is a better choice IMO.

Dragon

secrec You have better alternatives to iOS?, other than GOS which can't be used as mentioned before.

Pocketstar

This in an old article from 2018 that explains iCloud data in China is stored on state-controlled servers.
I cannot confirm this information is still valid in 2025 though.
https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-data
I think Apple did not have much of a choice though...
With GrapheneOS people have more autonomy and it is open source as well.

secrec

Pocketstar Its exactly crap like that that proves you can't trust apple, and it doesn't matter if they still do that now, it matters that they HAVE done things like that, proving that they are willing to under certain circumstances.

mmmm

secrec I agree, but I very much doubt they had a choice short of actually stopping the service entirely which isn’t in their (or even many of their users interests). As long as they communicate that (which I think if I remember correctly, that they gave people warning about it) as they did with the uk encrypted icloud stuff, which is also nonsense but very much of the same thing. I fail to see what else a massive for profit entity would do. As long as it’s communicated to their users.

Pocketstar

mmmm If Apple did not have a closed OS, users could avoid this nightmare themselves, just like the way people have more control with GrapheneOS because of AOSP.
It was Apple's choice to have it closed and therefore countries be able to manipulate them with government mandates, just like what happened to the protesters in Hong Kong.

secrec

mmmm As long as it’s communicated to their users.

That isn't necessarily an option. They can be ordered to keep it quiet.

n3t_admin

Pocketstar It was Apple's choice to have it closed and therefore countries be able to manipulate them with government mandates, just like what happened to the protesters in Hong Kong.

But you will have to agree that Google is heading in the same direction with Android.

It's a massive pain in the rear for them to keep 2 versions of Android maintained, so they moved to their "internal" version as the main branch, more or less. The proprietary parts of Android is what makes them money and keeps the show running. Having an open OS is bad for them - and they know it. Which is why they are cracking down on it so much lately.

Believe me, if they could, they would have never allowed for AOSP to be open source. It just seemed like a good idea at the time - so it's open source for historical reasons, mostly.

mmmm

Pocketstar That’s why I’m here in the first place. Their ludicrous control!

mmmm

n3t_admin Believe me, if they could, they would have never allowed for AOSP to be open source. It just seemed like a good idea at the time - so it's open source for historical reasons, mostly

It was a great idea, that’s probably why they now have such a massive market share. Same with windows and their MO. I doubt very much they regret it. But yes they sure are moving to ‘close the loophole’ now they have what they want.

n3t_admin

mmmm It was a great idea, that’s probably why they now have such a massive market share.

I would argue the massive market share comes from the licensing, not the product being open source.

Pocketstar

mmmm That’s why I’m here in the first place. Their ludicrous control!

Agreed, with that hardware and security which is great, some more autonomy over the software would be fantastic!
Perhaps, one day.

Dragon

@n3t_admin Please provide your insights..

Slim

GrapheneOS needs to focus on fixing these 5 main pain-points to get mass-adoption from iOS users aka most of the USA:

iMessage replacement. This is hard to do. iMessage is iOS's Default messaging platform. End to End encryption by default for normies is a MUST. No SMS bullshit. And RCS sucks right now, not encrypted either (on iPhone), so that's not valid.
FaceTime Replacement. Again, DEFAULT. Not something grandma has to go download a Signal APK for. E2EE by default. Encrypted calls.
MAPS. Wow there are no good maps apps for GOS that include accurate traffic. This is a major pain point.
Notifications for normal apps, WITHOUT the use of Google Play Services.
Something similar to "Advanced Data Protection", but for GOS.

My hope is that once GrapheneOS starts developing their own hardware in the next year or two, points #1 and #2 can be fixed. #3 is tough, no idea how to do that except to scrape WAZE data and somehow port/proxy that into a privacy-respecting maps app. #4 is also not gonna happen any time soon, and #5 is also not likely soon.

I would absolutely love to switch to GOS once it's up to snuff. But I can 100% guarantee you, GOS will not see mass adoption until things like those posted here are worked on.

@Dragon You make a good point. If normies right now aren't using GOS, they should be on iOS. There is no other alternative right now. Stock Android is 10000x worse than stock iOS. And if you tweak iOS like I mentioned in the video, you can block just about all major telemetry from iOS and 3rd party apps.

de0u

Slim GrapheneOS needs to focus on fixing these 5 main pain-points to get mass-adoption from iOS users aka most of the USA [...]

One person's opinion. Seems potentially impractical, since it probably cost Apple many millions of dollars over a decade or so to achieve those things. Unclear it makes sense to spend a lot of "air time" on those specific musings.

Meanwhile, I'm still curious about some issues from last week:

How does Apple's equivalent of IFVS work? (de0u)
Have there been any retractions/amendments of previous YouTube content? (GrapheneOS)

Skorp

Slim

GrapheneOS cannot force other OSes to adopt whatever app they might include nor make it intercompatible with the default e2ee options in most AOSP or iOS devices. As a preemptive counter to the argument that it should be an app for GOS users, isn't it better to have something that is intercompatible with other platforms (as Signal/Molly are)?
Same as above. Signal/Molly.
Of the 3 main options that have that (to my knowledge), 1 is Apple device only, and the other two are owned by the same company (Google). There is probably a good reason only they are able to provide live traffic information (hint, it's because to provide that you need other people using the same app or contributing to the data of being in the traffic).
GrapheneOS cannot force app developers to to implement any specific push notification system. If you want something "universal" then you would need all app developers to adopt the same notification service in their apps.
GrapheneOS already implements nearly all the features included in Advanced Data Protection, but out-of-the-box. GrapheneOS also allows users to toggle individual exploit protections, as opposed to it being an all or nothing option. If one protection feature causes a crucial app to not work or be inconvenient users are going to be more likely to toggle it off so the app works, but that would result in all additional protections being disabled.

I don't think these are the things limiting mass adoption. GrapheneOS has already seen large growth in the last few years and that hasn't stopped, only gotten faster I suspect.

raccoondad

Slim This is a major pain point.

Installing google play services isn't hard at all? How is it a 'major' pain to download play store -> sign in -> download maps

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