Android similarly has been continually improving the privacy/permissions model of the OS when it comes to third party apps. I am not sure that Apple has any obvious advantage in that department specifically.
I had ESFileExplorer installed on a Nexus 7 tablet I barely used. One day I start it to find the charging has switched to “smart charging” where this software shows a banner ad on the home/charging screen. There is no end to the madness of what each app can do or even allowed to ask for.
I am not sure what happened in your case with ES or how that would be possible. It sounds like maybe the app just pushed you an advertisement as a notification. Notifications can be disabled on a per-app basis but I think it is pretty reasonable that they are enabled by default.
[1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/05/10/es-file-explorer-up...
[2] To those who might laugh at my paranoia about ES while I happily use Zoom, I teach classes and it is not an easy choice not to use Zoom.
They got worse, also with updates since they were acquired Lenovo. Last time that I surveyed the Android landscape (~2 years ago), Nokia was the place to go for a pristine Android experience with quick updates.
I haven't found a LineageOS device that will pass the SafetyNet checks yet, though.
Is LineageOS still signed with testing keys?
Btw, all these distributions (Lineage and Cynogenmod before that) don't benefit from automated updates. So that is another headache to remember to manually reflash/upgrade.
That varies by the ROM. Many do support automated OTA updates. (https://www.androidexplained.com/lineage-os-ota-update-locat...)
Seems like a good thing, really.
Biggest advantage is that it's a pure Android with no bloatware from the manufacturer. Also you get a guarantee IIRC to have at least two versions upgrades for the phone (my Xiaomi came with Android 8, so 10 should be the last one), and most of all security updates.
All iOS is pure iOS. That’s the selling point for me, at least.
I don’t want iOS on my random experimental project laptop, for that I have Linux or windows, or vms. But, cellphones are not something I need to hack around on.
You can also choose to jailbreak an Apple device if you really want to be unpure, and luckily doing so won't prevent you from updating your phone in the future.
Different strokes for different folks. I like having the ability to sideload apps and flash a different OS to my phone
Also what bothers me about Android devices: I got a Galaxy S8 to do development for work, and not all manufacturers are created equal in updates of course; IIRC I waited almost a full year after the Google flagships to receive Android 9 — in fact I think I got Android 8 around the time Android 9 came out.
But imagine if Windows worked the way Android does. You buy a Dell Windows laptop and then you receive all your OS updates directly from Dell, they limit you to only 2 years of updates (if that), and put some bloated skin over the whole OS.
I don't know why Android users accept this.
$200 G7 got Android 10 about 3 weeks ago.
4 years is much better than current Android phones, though it's true it doesn't quite live up to the current Apple lineup where iOS 14 is going to support the 6S which will be 5 years old by the time it launches.
Android puts much more emphasis on backwards compatibility, with Google moving more and more functionality into app libraries rather than system frameworks. Our app still supports Android 4.4 (released in 2014!).
iphoneOS 15 will be supported by iPhone 6S: this was released in 2015. If app supports iOS 12 (which most do, as it is only one version below the current iOS 13) it means they support iPhone 5S: which was released in 2013.
And Apple users are likely to update: 92% run the latest version, and 7% are on the iOS 12.
In the beginning, Android showed you what an app could before you installed it, and it was an all-or-nothing approach – if you didn't want the app to do those things, your only choice was to not install it.
In the beginning, iOS didn't have this, and instead it prompted you for permission the first time an app wanted permission to do something. Additionally, app review had rules that apps had to operate correctly if you refused permission and that apps couldn’t ask for permissions irrelevant to what you are doing. So you can install an app, then pick and choose what you grant permission for.
Later, Android added the prompts to work the same as iOS. iOS hasn't changed to include the Android approach.
So in the very very very beginning it was:
iOS: prompts for permissions, but almost nothing (including accessing user data) requires permissions anyway
Android: Granular permissions for everything, but only asked at install time.
Since then iOS has become "more Android-y" in adding increasingly more granular permissions, and Android has become "more iOS-y" in those permission grants being on-demand and time-gated.
This took a few years to improve, but even today, there are Android apps that will refuse to work if you don't grant some (unnecessary, in the view of the user) permission. That kind of behavior is very, very rare among iOS apps.
Though an extremely annoying side effect is that they are also handicapping one of the best android features: user scripting with tools like automagic4android [i] and tasker [ii]. To wit: https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/b1272l/android_q_ta...
[i] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.gridvision.... [ii] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....
Remember the fun we had making fun of Apple Maps? Why in the world would Apple have dropped Google as the back end for their original Maps program, right? Well, it was because back in 2011 or so, Google refused to give Apple access to true turn-by-turn navigation features unless Apple gave them more access to user data. Rather than do that, Apple decided to go it themselves, even though that made the Maps product worse for years. This is consistent with Apple's behavior in other fields. (Hey, Siri!)
There are a lot of criticisms to be made of Apple, but "they're selling your data by proxy" just doesn't seem to be one of them.
[0]: https://dazeinfo.com/2018/10/01/apple-google-fee-iphone-sear...
Meanwhile if you use iCloud backups all your data is one subpoena away from law enforcement.
My point stands, apples revenue is not from privacy violating advertising and has no motivation for data collection beyond product improvement
Vizio isn't the only one but here's an example: https://www.tomsguide.com/amp/us/vizio-ftc-smart-tv-spying-p...
How-to disable additional snooping: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...
Mind you this goes above what most consumers would consider acceptable and can be blatantly sold to advertisers.
This is just what manufacturers have done but then there's just the attempts we know of by the CIA dump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206536
It’s way too early for this to be a reasonable assumption. The fact that they made that comment implies they are aware how widespread the is.
Both systems have extreme downfalls with the strategy they have taken, Apple's walled garden, and Google's necessity to use tracking because they are an ad company and this is how they make money.
Overall, Apple's certainly the lesser of two evils, but I think I'll be considering a PinePhone next, once the software ecosystem has matured a bit. I'm going to start speaking with my wallet and not conceding to settling.
That seems like an obvious advantage to me.
In Apple the phone is the product.
I've probably had a smartphone as long as anyone. And I hope it's not just because some people work at Google. :)