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I’m a techie so I’m not sure if the rest of the population thinks about this the same way, but I assume Android phones are spying on me much more than iPhones.

I’m a techie so I’m not sure if the rest of the population thinks about this the same way, but I assume Android phones are spying on me much more than iPhones. Otherwise I’d be down with supporting an “open” phone, though I’m old enough to remember walking tons of people through installing Spybot Search & Destroy due to the, uh, openness of Windows. Also, I spend tons of time fiddling around on the command line and don’t feel the need to get my tinkerer fix from a phone. Maybe other people don’t want to move away from what’s familiar, or they just want to see the blue color for a fellow iMessage user to feel they’re using the same thing as the other iPhone folks. I’m also expecting to rely on various iOS permissions settings as my kids grow up, and Find My iPhone is very handy with my family’s devices.

derac 5y ago
Android has find my phone as well.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  The ios one is just better. Or at least they present the features better. On Android I do not remember it being an app but instead a website you go to. On iOS the app has multiple functions, finding your phone/macbook/ipad, finding your friends if they enable location sharing, and finding your items via airtags. The latest version even lets you track your iphone while it is turned off via an airtags like function built in.
  - TickleSteve 5y ago
    FYI: Its an app on Android also... and lets you find any registered device. Its up to you to get your friends registered on it tho. Airtags are different as there is no first party implementation, they're all 3rd party (Tile, samsung, etc).
- koyote 5y ago
  And Android has had it since 2013. I am not sure if it's simply bad marketing but I often feel like a lot of the features Android has are unknown to iPhone users (understandable) but also unknown to many Android users. I remember a colleague of mine getting an iPhone after being on Android for years. I asked her why she switched and she told me that there were all these great features her friend had told her about that iPhones had. Turns out all those features already existed on Android, they were just unknown to her.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    If a feature falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound? Less cryptically, if a user isn't aware of a feature, does it really exist for them?
season2episode3 5y ago
Spybot Search & Destroy. What a blast from the past :D
jka 5y ago
I think it's true that both Android and iOS have privacy issues (at a software and design level). And yep, from the branding of those devices (which Apple can control much more closely since they provide both hardware and software), the perception is much more likely to be that the svelte, sleek white object protects your privacy. Over a long timeline though, I don't know whether a closed source ecosystem can prove (or achieve) that. Maybe the code inside all those components is equally pristine and it all respects your privacy as much as the corresponding advertising claims would suggest. Perhaps time will tell.
scns 5y ago
That GIF from the /e/ foundation website shows quite well how much more, it is still a lot on an iPhone. https://e.foundation/about-e/ https://e.foundation/about-e/

derac 5y ago

Android has find my phone as well.

SilverRed 5y ago
The ios one is just better. Or at least they present the features better. On Android I do not remember it being an app but instead a website you go to. On iOS the app has multiple functions, finding your phone/macbook/ipad, finding your friends if they enable location sharing, and finding your items via airtags. The latest version even lets you track your iphone while it is turned off via an airtags like function built in.
- TickleSteve 5y ago
  FYI: Its an app on Android also... and lets you find any registered device. Its up to you to get your friends registered on it tho. Airtags are different as there is no first party implementation, they're all 3rd party (Tile, samsung, etc).
koyote 5y ago
And Android has had it since 2013. I am not sure if it's simply bad marketing but I often feel like a lot of the features Android has are unknown to iPhone users (understandable) but also unknown to many Android users. I remember a colleague of mine getting an iPhone after being on Android for years. I asked her why she switched and she told me that there were all these great features her friend had told her about that iPhones had. Turns out all those features already existed on Android, they were just unknown to her.
- simondotau 5y ago
  If a feature falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, did it make a sound? Less cryptically, if a user isn't aware of a feature, does it really exist for them?

season2episode3 5y ago

Spybot Search & Destroy. What a blast from the past :D

jka 5y ago

I think it's true that both Android and iOS have privacy issues (at a software and design level). And yep, from the branding of those devices (which Apple can control much more closely since they provide both hardware and software), the perception is much more likely to be that the svelte, sleek white object protects your privacy. Over a long timeline though, I don't know whether a closed source ecosystem can prove (or achieve) that. Maybe the code inside all those components is equally pristine and it all respects your privacy as much as the corresponding advertising claims would suggest. Perhaps time will tell.

scns 5y ago

That GIF from the /e/ foundation website shows quite well how much more, it is still a lot on an iPhone. https://e.foundation/about-e/ https://e.foundation/about-e/