Why do high profile people use iPhone ?

error404

First of all, I would like to thank Team Graphene for their amazing work. I'm a noob in the world of privacy & recently came to know about GOS. Honestly, I'm pretty impressed by it.
But I do have a question:
Why do high profile people like presidents[ usa, uk, france, ...], government officials, billionaires [bezoz, jack, ...] etc use iPhone ?
Even though they are in need of privacy & security the most.
Does apple provide different version of iphone to them or they just trick people so people use iphones ?

Thanks in advance for answering.

Sindaquil

error404 an iphone is updated 7 or even 9 years... We cannot compare with Android. And for the most critical profiles there is the lockdown mode which is roughly comparable to grapheneos

nrt

imessage. everyone who has an iPhone has encrypted messaging by default, reducing dragnet surveillance.

ivicaivica

I believe it's not directly linked to iMessage.

Majority of people believe that iPhone is simple, secure, has the best camera and respects your privacy while Android is the opposite. Also, when did you see a bad guy use an iPhone in any movie? You didn't, because Apple has a strict policy about it's public image; they are the good guys.... the only good guys. Buy iPhone an you will be good, safe and popular.

They are the best at marketing. But also, iPhones are a lot more reliable than majority of Android phones and they have a global logistics/repair network.. I guess the defragmentation of Android market plays a big role here.

Titan_M2

@error404 iPhones are much more secure and private than almost every Android phone, but I think they choose that just because it’s a status symbol far more recognizable than random Android phones.

@nrt I hope not, iMessage is routinely exploited by Pegasus and other spyware.

Blastoidea

I agree with the simple to use and status symbol, not sure about the rest.

Besides, all android phones other than pixels are irrelevant.

alex

There's also this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212650

Every iPhone running iOS 16 (= iPhone 8 or newer) can activate this, making attacks significantly more difficult. Granted, this wasn't a thing before 2022, but these days iPhones are really good choices even for people facing targeted attacks.

[deleted]

alex While it's great for protecting people who might find themselves targets of state-sponsored spyware, it can easily lead to a person being identified as using such a feature. Just like a lot of things out there, it’s a tradeoff between security and privacy and individuals such as politicians will (normally) go for the former rather than the latter.

https://9to5mac.com/2022/08/26/iphone-lockdown-mode-2/

Eirikr70

Usually, as presidents or ministers, ... they have specific hardened phones. They might have iPhones for personal communications, but they are not supposed to use them for the purpose of their official function.
In France, they are supposed to use their Teorem terminals, although they are so hard to use that the officials use the private phone.

[deleted]

Eirikr70

Emmanuel Macron now uses a modified Samsung Galaxy S.
https://www.bfmtv.com/economie/entreprises/services/voici-le-smartphone-ultra-securise-qu-utilise-emmanuel-macron_AN-201711080170.html

csis01

One word answer: MARKETING.

The fruit company PAYS them to use their trash, which leads to people like YOU noticing what they're using, and increasing the chance of buying one when you make unsubstantiated assumptions like "well this guy is using it and needs security, so it must be secure". The answer is no, that does NOT imply security.

treequell

I've locked this thread and removed some messages, because the original question has already been answered, and the thread has descended into bickering. This Forum is not for that. Please don't do that here.