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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

Android seems to be growing inferior to iOS in almost every way, which I find sad. I prefer to root for the underdog.

* Privacy

* Security

* Efficiency

I have a personal Android S22+ and an iPhone 13 mini. The iPhone gets better with every update, whereas there's always something funky going on with my droid. Every update does something weird, fixing one thing and breaking something new, and managing to offer no significant privacy improvements.

In fact, today it is Samsung, the world's second largest phone vendor (outside of China), who is the one getting hit by data breaches, leaks, and hacks on an ongoing basis.

View on HN

Apple has literally proposed using the phone you bought and paid for to spy on you and report you to the authorities if you do bad things. While they backed down from that plan, they went out of their way to make it clear that they were only backing down temporarily. To suggest that iOS is ahead in privacy is ludicrous.

I'll keep buying phones that only use cloud services that spy on me, instead of spying on me directly. At least that's somewhat defensible as it's not my hardware acting against me.

Umm, Google also reports you to authorities for bad things

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

Google reports you to the authorities, the phone you purchased from Google, but now own, does not.

So basically.

As of now, Apple does nothing as they backed down from that plan.

And google reports you to authorities and never stopped and also never went public about letting you know they were doing it (at least apple published a freaking press release to announce it and ask for feedback!)

And somehow that makes Apple worse.

To be clear, Apples current actual activities is the same as Googles current actual activites. They scan files uploaded to their cloud services and report you to the authorities if they discover illegal material. Both companies are of course unable to detect CSAM in encrypted files, and Apple encrypts more files by default meaning that the impact of their current policy is somewhat less than Googles. Neither company has ever felt the need to make splashy press releases about this.

Apple additionally has said that they will (though have backed off on the timing to "some time in the future") said that they will use your hardware to scan your photos and have it report you to the authorities.

> To be clear, Apples current actual activities is the same as Googles current actual activites. They scan files uploaded to their cloud services and report you to the authorities if they discover illegal material

Actually, they don't, at least according to Hacker Factor. There's definitely not only 160 images of CSAM uploaded to iCloud Photos every year.

> Of all of the companies identified by NCMEC, I only saw one that had an unexpected decrease in reporting: Apple. According to NMEC, Apple submitted 205 reports in 2019 (a third my my reporting volume). Apple increased a little, to 265 in 2020, but then dropped in 2021 to only 160 reports. That's nearly a 22% decrease over two years!

https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/955-NC...

Interesting, Apples privacy policy says that they can scan data you upload for illegal content and report it, news articles from when this blew up in the news said that Apple did for services like iMail (that upload in an unencrypted form). I can't speak towards what they actually currently do.

My understanding of iCloud photos is that they're encrypted, as in Apple can't scan them on the server, but I'd imagine across they're cloud services they ought to be seeing more unencrypted content than that.

I also don't care nearly as much about their servers scanning content that they are in possession of, as my device scanning content that I am in possession of... so I probably should have stayed out of this part of the argument a bit better. Oh well.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/ (See Apple's Use of Personal Data)

https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/23/apple-scans-icloud-mail-for-c...

With a court order, Apple will hand over the contents of an iCloud drive without any encryption to law enforcement. So they could do Google style preemptive scanning of everything uploaded.

Adding an encrypted hash to every photo instead seems way better than having access to every photo on iCloud without any encryption.

> My understanding of iCloud photos is that they're encrypted, as in Apple can't scan them on the server

iCloud Photos currently aren't encrypted this way, just "in transit and on server" [1].

> iCloud secures your information by encrypting it when it’s in transit, storing it in an encrypted format, and securing your encryption keys in Apple data centers. Both Apple and third-party data centers may be used to store and process your data.

This contrasts with services marked "end-to-end" where Apple doesn't have the key.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Apple devices are worse because they makes you use Apple services. Android devices let you use your own services. Google has to build its apps using the same APIs as everybody else.

It does if you select Google Backup, which is exactly the same situation with Apple.

It’s something of a tradeoff as encrypting backups on device runs into issues if you lose the device. However, if companies have unencrypted data the US government and possibly others will require them to check for specific things.

Can you provide some sources?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/apple-photo-scan...

Generally search "CSAM apple" and you'll find endless articles about this.

link for “iOS report photos to police”

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ios+report+photos+to+police&t=fpas...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/apple-explains-h...

You do understand that they only proposed to scan photos that were going to be synced to iCloud Photos.

Which is an entirely optional and opt-in service.

If they're only going to scan photos that will sync to iCloud Photos, why wouldn't they just keep doing it server-side? As far as it's publicly known, no one asked Apple to do this.

> why wouldn't they just keep doing it server-side

Because they want to scan files that will be encrypted on your device and not transferred to the server as plaintext. No doubt they'll continue to scan unencrypted files server side.

> no one asked Apple to do this.

If someone asked them to it would turn it into a warrantless search with Apple acting as the state agents to search your possessions. It would almost certainly result in the evidence being tossed by any US court. This kind of warrantless search only works if Apple does it of their own accord, instead of on the governments behalf.

Note that this doesn't apply to searches done on Apples servers to data you uploaded, there it's their possessions that they're searching, not yours.

> no one asked Apple to do this

Apple is very pro-privacy and probably doesn’t like having access to unencrypted customer photos. But if they just encrypted everything it would be a child abuser’s dream because suddenly they’d be safe on iOS, and when people found out Apple started protecting them it would be a disaster for PR and law enforcement.

After much consultation their solution was to scan for known abuse images on device so they could be kept in the cloud in an encrypted form without providing abusers a safe haven.

Also they were only scanning for known abuse images, not trying to find new ones to report with AI like Google did.

> To suggest that iOS is ahead in privacy is ludicrous.

On Android, you have a dad reported to the police and his Google account locked (including his Google Fi cellular plan) for taking photos of his toddler to send to the doctor https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

Apple has not done this.

The photos were synced to Google Drive where we know it would be scanned...which is fine. Apple's proposal would report you as soon as you took the picture.

You are incorrect. A quick google search will show you that the Apple CSAM detection was only going to be implemented to photos uploaded to iCloud.

Do you have a source for that? I somewhat recall their proposal was only to ever scan photos uploaded to iCloud.

I believe that was the plan, initially, however the scanning was still happening on device. That has many people rightfully concerned that the scanning could extend to local-only images next.

What a strange concern. Sending hashes of images as you take them to a remote server is very easy to do in any OS update, if they really wanted to betray their customer base's privacy expectations like that.

IMO the more logical guess as to the actual reason Apple wants to do this - to approach e2e encrypted iCloud photos in a LE-friendly way.

iCloud backups are not e2e encrypted, though.

And I don’t think anyone was suggesting that Apple would secretly betray users. The concern is normalization of the notion of on-device scanning before (publicly) expanding the scope to all images.

If are talking about the whole device backup, Most of it are encrypted with your phone unlock pin or recovery code. Only iMessages (iirc) are not e2ee.

I was not suggesting this either... And yes, iCloud backups if you choose to use them are mostly not e2e encrypted (some important bits like iCloud keychain etc aside).

In any case, I think this concern of yours is unfounded, as echoed by many in the other comments below, and you should rethink it before continuing to push it.

The amount of scanning has not changed since the invention of corporate image hosting on the internet; you still cannot use iCloud to host known illegal content - they just moved where the scanning takes place. I don't see how this makes it any more likely or normalized to scan your non-iCloud photos.

The thing is they never announced e2e iCloud photos with the new process. So we could presume, but I honestly believe they never intend to give it to us.

It's illogical to fault Apple for something that they hadn't even talked about implementing ("local-only images" as you put it)

They have it backwards, scanning cloud uploads on device is more private than scanning them in the cloud.

Only if iCloud photos were e2e encrypted, which they are not. Then cloud scanning would necessarily mean removing the e2e encryption.

Since the photos are decryptable by keys in Apple’s possession, there is no real advantage to scanning on-device unless Apple/the government wanted to increase the scope of the scanning beyond iCloud.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

iCloud photo are not e2ee, but encrypted at rest. The key is encrypted with your password. Once you're logout, they are not supposed to be able to access them..

This isn't true at all FWIW, except for the "encrypted at rest" part. "At rest" just means Apple doesn't dump them onto hard drives somewhere in plaintext. Their security model is documented in detail and is worth understanding.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web

The advantage is that it doesn't use those keys, and you can see what it's doing. Less time spent ever decrypted = more private.

> That has many people rightfully concerned that the scanning could extend to local-only images next.

Apple didn’t propose this, and the scheme that Apple did propose was very inconvenient if they actually wanted to do this. They would have had to redesign how the system worked to do it, at which point most of the system would become completely useless. Nobody would come up with a system like Apple’s if they wanted to do what you describe. There are much simpler ways to do that which would have saved Apple a lot of time and effort. The only reason to design a system like Apple’s is to limit knowledge in all directions as much as possible.

Nobody was rightfully concerned about this, they got outraged because they would rather jump to conclusions over headlines than take the time to read about how the scheme worked.

The only reason to design a system like Apple’s is so that it is impossible to opt out of once it is rolled out to non-iCloud photos.

iCloud photos are not e2e encrypted. If only iCloud photos were the true final target, there is absolutely no need for on-device scanning.

> The only reason to design a system like Apple’s is so that it is impossible to opt out of once it is rolled out to non-iCloud photos.

This doesn’t make any sense because this system cannot be rolled out to non-iCloud photos. They would have to redesign how it worked. So the whole idea that Apple designed it this way for reasons that only kick in when it’s rolled out to non-iCloud photos is incoherent. If Apple were designing it for that purpose they would have picked a design that actually worked in those circumstances.

What about the design makes this only possible for iCloud? The scanning occurs on device. What limits it to only iCloud photos?

Well it’s quite clearly integrated into the iCloud system. Why would you think that it works for local photos without iCloud?

A known CSAM photo gets added to photos on an iPhone with iCloud disabled – what happens next? What do you think is the mechanism for that getting reported?

The announcement was a little confusing, but Apple said they would scan photos being sent to iCloud but the scanning would occur on device (I suppose right before uploading).

I was under the impression that Apple only planned to scan photos that would be uploaded to the cloud. Is that incorrect?

They were planning to compare hashes/fingerprints of your photos against known, existing child porn images.

This is the thing that confuses me about this discussion.

Apple planned to look for known abuse images. People freaked out and they had to back down.

Google already scans for possible abuse images including new ones using AI. Thus it found and reported a father for a pic he had just taken.

And Apple is somehow the worse of the two.

Everyone agrees that stopping CSAM in a way that respects everyone rights is a good thing. We aren't making a results oriented objection to the goal, but a methods oriented objection.

The courts at least all agree that a company can be compelled to scan content in their possession, the creator of the content has no significant privacy rights. This is known as the third party doctrine. All Google is doing is doing this kind of scanning.

Apple meanwhile, wants to take your device (something that they cannot be compelled to do, due to the 4th amendment restriction against seizures) and use it to scan the content on your device (something they cannot be compelled to do, due to the 4th amendment restriction against searches) to decide whether or not there is illegal content on it.

The company violating you worse is pretty obviously the one doing things to you that the government couldn't compel them to do, because (if compelled) it would violate your rights.

But they were not not going to do it if you chose to use iCloud Photos. It’s basically a condition in the ToS, just like Google has one saying they can scan stuff in Google Photos.

It seems like hair-splitting to me. In both cases your photos are getting checked if you want to use the cloud storage service. Why is it worse to do on device (where it’s private) instead of on Google’s server (where you have to give them a plaintext copy of the photo)?

“Oh but Apple could change that with any update”. Couldn’t Google do the same with any update to Android, or even a Google Play Services update?

>Why is it worse to do on device (where it’s private) instead of on Google’s server (where you have to give them a plaintext copy of the photo)?

Suppose you go to a public restroom and someone has installed a camera in there to perv on the people using it. That would be an invasion of your privacy, right? Now suppose someone installed a camera in your bathroom at your house. Would you say that's an equivalent invasion of your privacy?

So you’re against all scanning?

No, the analogy isn't perfect. It was just intended to show how both types of scanning are different. If someone agrees that installing a secret camera in a private bathroom is worse than in a public one, they should also agree that scanning files in someone's personal device is worse than scanning files in one's own server.

I think once you give someone else your unencrypted data, anything that happens to it afterwards is fair game. I assume at some point a human will snoop around my files.

Your analogy is way off base.

First: this was all, quite literally, about Apple wanting to NOT have access to your unencrypted photos.

In Apple's proposed plan, we would only be talking about hashes of pictures, and the comparison would be done by your device.

A fitting analogy would be if the "public restroom camera" snapped a Polaroid of you and asked you to compare it to a binder of known child porn, except somehow did this in a way that did not expose you to child porn and would not inconvenience you in any way and was guaranteed not to transmit the Polaroid somewhere else, and you had opted in to the whole process and there was another bathroom right next to it that required no such participation.

It's important to understand that Apple's on-device scanning plan was in the service of allowing E2E encryption.

The idea was to create a path by which they could comply with various current and upcoming CSAM legislation while still maintaining an E2E encryption flow.

If they were going to enable e2e wouldnt that have to mean no manual review before reporting people to authorities?

You're taking the analogy too literally. I was merely responding to the question posed by MBCook in general, not in this particular case. Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server.

Incidentally, this scanning using hashes is indistinguishable from malware. Someone other than the user is instructing the device to perform operations that under no circumstances will benefit the user. Would this be tolerated if the list of hashes included copyrighted files, or prohibited books? I'm constantly disappointed by how effective "won't somebody please think of the children" is.

> Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server.

Why? That’s the part I don’t get. People state that like it’s obvious on its face and it’s not to me.

If you perform an identical operation on a server, why is it better than performing the same operation on my device?

The result is identical. The inputs are identical.

Well, because that's what "intrusive" means. Your property is being intruded into in order to use it for the benefit of someone other than you. Your property is yours. It's in your possession because you paid for it. It should only do something because you tell it to or because it will help it to better respond to your commands later. It should never act against your interests. You would not buy a microphone that eavesdropped on you, right? It should be equally unacceptable that your computers read your files, perform some computation on them, and send the results to some remote location without your intervention.

On the other hand, when you transfer your data to someone else's computer, you're relinquishing some control over it. Just like how your computer should serve you, that computer will serve its operator, and that operator's interests may be adversarial to you.

> It should be equally unacceptable that your computers read your files, perform some computation on them, and send the results to some remote location without your intervention.

I hear you. I really do. The world you describe is the world I want to live in.

But it’s not the world we live in. Your device is so complex, does so many operations per second, has so many sensors, sends so much data, receives so much data, that it is functionally impossible for a person to consent to everything that their device does. For all intents and purposes, you own the device, but have very little control over it. This has been true since smartphones came into existence.

So to take a stance like yours — and all-or-nothing stance, a declaration of sovereignty from the The Way It Works — is, I’m sorry to say, delusional. Demanding that perfect be the enemy of the good is exactly how we will sleepwalk into the dystopian surveillance state.

You're looking at it the wrong way. You're saying that it's impractical to have perfect knowledge of everything the device is doing, but in fact that's not necessary. All it would take is to have laws that make it illegal to inspect data in a user's computer except by confiscating the device with a warrant. That would remove all incentive for LEO and companies acting on their behalf to pull stunts like these. It would also mean they would have to have very good tracking to prevent tainting of evidence (since it would otherwise be difficult to tell where a piece of data came from). Obviously this would not secure you from all attackers (e.g. imagine you want to keep some trade secrets, secret), but nothing other than good infosec would.

The problem is that a lot of people don't understand why privacy is important and why compromising it for what seems like good reasons is dangerous. Such people don't understand that some laws that make it easier to get away with crimes can still be good.

I certainly agree that "won't somebody please think of the children" has been exploited countless times in various shameful and downright evil ways.

(And tangentially, I'm not even sure that spotting traders of known CSAM is even a great way to combat the extremely real problem of pedophilia. Feels like another "war on drugs", where we target end users, as opposed to addressing the actual roots of the problem)

In a way, Apple is the victim of that here - they need to comply with laws based on "think of the children" rhetoric.

There are various current and proposed laws in various places around the world that compel Apple to share cloud content with various law enforcement agencies. Various current and future laws may compel Apple and other cloud hosts to actively scan for and report various things on behalf of government. This is... not great. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think we agree on that much?

We also agree that it is at best impractical for Apple to flaunt the law of nations, yes?

They are powerful, but they can't just defy federal law in a brazen and public way.

This is the context in which Apple's on-device image fingerprint scanning was conceived. They would like to enable E2E encryption for users for privacy's sake (because privacy is also a unique selling point vs. Google) while simultaneously complying with law.

If you want to argue that it sucks: sure. That's totally valid. The alternatives are certainly viable and even commendable: running your own "cloud", eschewing cloud storage, shunning smartphones entirely, etc.

However, it seems like most people like and want cloud storage.

Working within the constraints of "people want cloud storage" and "we can't openly defy multiple world governments", Apple's CSAM scanning proposal felt like clearly the best possible (least evil, if you prefer) cloud solution that doesn't involve exiting the market entirely or establishing their own offshore data centers and declaring them sovereign nations.

>(And tangentially, I'm not even sure that spotting traders of known CSAM is even a great way to combat the extremely real problem of pedophilia. Feels like another "war on drugs", where we target end users, as opposed to addressing the actual roots of the problem)

Agreed.

>We also agree that it is at best impractical for Apple to flaunt the law of nations, yes?

It's unclear to me what law would be violated by both storing encrypted data on their systems that they don't have the keys for and not scanning client devices.

Apple isn’t compelled to proactively scan photos on iCloud.

The scanning on device was adding a hash to each photo only readable

  - if it matched a known csam image

  - multiple photos within the iCloud account match known csam images

  - the image was uploaded to iCloud

Compare that to Google where only the last point needs to be true in order to have Google run any algorithm they please on your photos looking for violative images.

They're free to scan whatever they want on their computers. Not on mine. Especially not without my knowledge. I don't want anti-cheating and anti-malware software surveilling me either. Even the goddamn NSA has had data leaks because someone installed Kaspersky and it phoned home with a copy of some suspect data.

They were adding a hash of a photo as metadata that is unreadable by everyone except Apple after you upload an image and only if it matches the hash of a known csam image.

The whole OS is proprietary. You either trust apple to do what they say or you will have to run Android on a build you completely reviewed the source to.

If you want to act practically, scanning on your device is slightly better for privacy.

Yeah lots of cognitive dissonance. Some people keep comparing what Apple could be instead of what they actually are. Google as a privacy champion is not something that is supported by reality.

You're leaving out the detail that the CSAM scanning and detection would only occur if you upload your photos to iCloud. If you don't have iCloud photos turned on, the scanning wouldn't happen.

Additionally, scanning would happen on-device at time of upload and not on Apple's servers.

Not only that but Apple’s only matched hashes of known CSAM kept in the NCMEC database.

Google meanwhile scans for algorithmically determined new content and ruins people’s lives without any ability to appeal (even after national news coverage): https://stratechery.com/2022/rights-laws-and-google/

Also Apple was clearly doing this so they could enable e2e encryption on iCloud.

They were doing it as a favor to the DOJ to avoid an investigation into their business practices.

To be fair they were probably doing it as a disguise to the real goal: spy on everything you do on your phone and send it to the "authorities", no questions asked. Before the autists noticed it after it was implemented, Apple simply announced beforehand that it's devices would start spying on you, but it's to protect the kids you know...

> but it's to protect the kids you know...

Yeah, but the big question still remains, do they protect me from terrorists as well?

ya thats BS argument, I dont need my cellphone os to protect me from terrorists I need them to protect my privacy from unnecessary overreach from govt. having a completely surveilled society will will protect you from most of the attacks but to most people the cost will be unbearable. I thought that was quite settled after snow-den disclosures.

> If you don't have iCloud photos turned on, the scanning wouldn't happen

At first. Then some legislator gets the bright idea mandate on-device scanning or someone adds a dark pattern to trick people into uploading to iCloud without realizing the ramifications. Having that capability is a threat to privacy even if it is initially configurable.

This is what happened in the google case. The photos were immediately auto uploaded to google photos because that’s the default configuration.

Apple’s proposal scanned for KNOWN abuse images. It didn’t try to identify NEW images the way Google did.

So in the same situation Apple’s proposal (which was designed with the input of many experts to avoid false positives and respect privacy) COULD NOT have flagged the father.

Apple’s proposal would have only worked against previously known pictures in the database maintained by the non-profit. The story we’re discussing here is due to machine learning deciding the pictures were CSAM.

This comment is pretty incoherent but I assume you're talking about CSAM.

In which case, (a) you are not required to use iCloud Photos and (b) it is not out of the ordinary for US-based photo hosting services to scan for CSAM.

There is no evidence otherwise that Apple is "spying on you" whatever that specifically means.

As I'm sure you are aware, the proposed change was for files synced to iCloud. This puts it in the same boat as the recent Google Photos incident which you appear to be ok with.

But, as you noted, Apple backed down on the proposal, so assuming that you still hold that cloud scanning is ok, Apple's approach, at least in this regard is at worst equal.

Apple doesn't seem to do any cloud CSAM scanning of iCloud Photos, at least according to Hacker Factor:

note: later on they say:

> Granted, Apple only rolled out this new functionality in mid-December 2021. However, based on their volume of traffic, I would expect them to (at minimum) submit a few hundred reports to NCMEC each week. I cannot fathom any legal or technical reason why Apple is not submitting more reports to NCMEC. It's as if these laws apply to everyone except Apple.

https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/955-NC...

I'm fundamentally not ok with my device acting against my interests.

This doesn't happen with Google, my android phone does not act against my interests. Meanwhile Google's servers do act against my interests (as do Apples servers - though not as effectively since more content is encrypted), but I don't own them, so what can I really expect?

Apple only backed down temporarily, their communication has been "we still plan to do this, but later". Given the nature of OS updates, that means you can't buy an IPhone today and be confident that it won't decide to start spying on you tomorrow.

Apple’s solution was not like Google’s.

Google used AI to try to find CSAM, thus it flagged the father’s picture taken to send to a doctor.

Apple’s solution was to check against a database of known abuse images. It would not be capable of flagging a new photo someone took.

Of the two solutions Google’s may find more offenders, but it would clearly find FAR more false positives.

The only way for a false positive in the Apple system is for two unrelated images to have identical perceptual hashes (with multiple algorithms?). Plus there was no reporting until a threshold of multiple (10+) matches were found, so one false positive wouldn’t do it.

> Plus there was no reporting until a threshold of multiple (10+) matches were found, so one false positive wouldn’t do it

Not even that, the photos were not visible to some trusted human party until 10+ matches were found. That is, photos were not auto reported, they were only decryptable after the threshold was crossed and then they are reported after being reviewed by a human

This comment has predictably spawned a back-and-forth about which shitty privacy violating phone is 10% less shitty, but if you care about privacy the discussion you should be having is how to eliminate smartphone usage as much as possible.

Eliminating computer usage isn't a valid solution. Computers are too useful to simply stop using them. Maybe computers were a mistake that will eventually destroy society but for now they're here to stay especially mobile computers with built in archaic telephony.

So the question is how to improve privacy and control while using computers.

>> how to eliminate smartphone usage as much as possible.

>Eliminating computer usage isn't a valid solution.

Computer's promise is to be bicycle for mind. Computer usage does not deserve to be eliminated. Smartphone is something different. For me it feels that the promise of smartphone is to gather all your personal data which is possible.

The solution is easy. You purchase a general purpose computer and use it. A smartphone is not a general computer, it's more of an appliance, and correspondingly Android and iOS have a variety of limitations.

A smartphone is also not something you really need to use a lot to get by in life -- sure, it adds a lot of convenience, but almost everything it does can be replaced by a dumbphone and a general purpose computer. Personally I still use one but if I find myself using it for anything other than calls, texts or food delivery apps I usually set it down and walk over to my Linux PC where I can do it equally well.

> spy on you and report you to the authorities if you do bad things

Pedantic correction: while the phone would spy on you to pre-calculate + embed "you are a bad guy doing a bad thing" metadata into photos, the phone wouldn't then report you to the authorities. You had to choose to sync your photos into iCloud Photos (i.e. expose them in cleartext to Apple), for Apple to then discover the embedded "you are a bad guy" metadata out of them, and use it to report you to the authorities.

Apple also couldn’t tell if you were a bad guy until 10 such photos were uploaded.

While I don’t agree with their plan, the only reason it was proposed is a tradeoff between allowing e2e encrypted cloud backups and upholding the law regarding no child porn on their servers. If you have a better idea then I’m sure they are happy to hear it!

> Privacy

The company that wants to force CSAM, doesn't encrypt iCloud backups so it can remain as a backdoor to WhatsApp, cares about your privacy?.

I can't even install and app without an apple account.

Apple doesn't care about your privacy, its just marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r38Epj6ldKU

On android I can use it without a google account, with newpipe for zero ads on YouTube, infinity for zero ads on reddit, glider as a client for HN.

I use CalyxOS for better privacy with usability, and you can switch to GrapheneOS which is one of the most secure mobile OSes. (Only on Pixel).

While on iOS, there is nothing even close to it, and the FOSS scene is totally dead.

However I only like stock android, Samsung, or the million other IOS clones from Chinese companies almost all suck.

> Security

IOS has more vulnerabilities than Android

https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/

What phone do you use, that allows that many choices of android variants, sorry?

A Pixel.

Thank you very much!

>However I only like stock android, Samsung, or the million other IOS clones from Chinese companies almost all suck.

I used to like stock android but since 12 it's been going down the drain in terms of looks and feel. Now I prefer the Samsung UI since they're at least consistent with previous versions and don't make huge changes for the sake of changes like Google does.

So this is one of the main advantages of android: vendors can rejected Google's ästhetisc choices and just keep the under the hood improvements.

Samsung is better than the rest, but still I prefer stock android, especially with zero bloat and ads.

Even a stock Pixel is more private, because there is no third parties or bloat to track you other than Google services(which are on every phone anyway).

> The company that wants to force CSAM

Every big company forces it, Apple tried to make it better but it was PR failure. Nobody bothered to understand their papers properly.

> doesn't encrypt iCloud backups

CSAM scanning on device feature would have allowed that, now they need to keep scanning in cloud.

> I can't even install and app without an apple account.

How easily average users can install app safely without Google account on Android? Underlining the word safely.

You are talking from the perspective of 0.01% users.

> How easily average users can install app safely without Google account on Android? Underlining the word safely.

What do you mean by "safely" here? What is unsafe about going to a trusted APK source and downloading it and running it?

EPIC literally offers fortnite this way and users seem to manage fine: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android/new-...

Before the walled gardens of the Mobile app stores it wasn't only 0.01% of users able to install software on their computers without screwing it up.

> trusted APK source and downloading it and running it?

99% of the users do not know what is actually trusted or not. If third party sources gets popular, it gets even more difficult over time.

Epic one very big well known company and on that case you might trust their APK, but it is not the case for other thousand companies.

When the habit of downloading APK:s gets more popular again, as it used to, then malware spreadingg and phishing gets more popular as it used.

It is easier to get people install software from random sources since it is not uncommon. At the moment, it is uncommon and phishing is harder.

You didn't ask my main question which was: What do you mean by "safely" here?

> 99% of the users do not know what is actually trusted or not.

Before it was only 0.01% of users know what they're doing and now it's 99% of the users do not know if it's actually trusted or not, that's a 100x difference, I don't suppose you have a source on any of these numbers?

Your arguments are all hypothetical, yet we don't have to be as people literally download much of their software on PCs today outside of the Microsoft store and most users manage fine. Other mechanisms have been put in place at multiple levels (the search engine, the browser, and the OS) to make it safer for users, and the majority of those users don't get confused about trusted sources.

> You didn't ask my main question which was: What do you mean by "safely" here?

I thought I made it clear at least on the last phrase. ”Safely” simply means that software is what it is supposed to be.

My arguments are no hypothetical. Android used to be like that in early days, if you followed infosec in that time. It was common to downlod .apks from third parties and phones were full of malwares.

Android does not have same mechanisms like PC. It does not make signature checks for trusted sources or have Windows Defender build-in. Two primary reasons why it is safer to download arbitrary files in these days. MacOS has similar checks.

> CSAM scanning on device feature would have allowed that, now they need to keep scanning in cloud.

What does CSAM have to do with encrypting backups?

Its my device, you dont have the right to control what I do with it.

> How easily average users can install app safely without Google account on Android? Underlining the word safely.

> You are talking from the perspective of 0.01% users.

This doesn't matter, it should be an option regardless.

And I download apps from the play store safely just without using account.

Using Aurora store, an interface for the play store.

I've been an Android guy for a long time and I briefly switched to an iPhone from 2020-2022 but went back to Android. The reason? Being forced to use Safari or a re-badged Safari because Apple refuses to let other browser engines on the platform.

On Android I can run proper Firefox and get uBlock Origin.

Does uBlock Origin do a better job than the Ad Blocker extension on iPhone’s Safari? I use uBlock Origin on my desktop and Ad Blocker on my iPhone. Honestly, I can’t tell any difference. They both seem to block everything.

You can’t use ad blocker apps if you use any browser other than Safari. I use Firefox because I want to sync it with my desktop, which is not a Mac, so I have to choose between syncing and ad blocking.

Did you give Firefox Focus a try? I guess it gives you Firefox Sync + ad blocking

You can even install Firefox Focus and use it's ad-blocking in Safari. Focus installs their ad-blocking as a system-level blocker (I assume due to iOS rules/requirements) which allows you to just toggle it on for "all browsers" (aka Safari and the Safari based browsers, which is all of them).

How does Safari's blocking compare with what uBlock Origin can do in full-blooded Firefox? For example, does it support CNAME uncloaking?[1]

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-b...

On a technical level I'm unaware of the details on how Safari blocking works, but anecdotally uBlock Origin is way more capable.

For some reason I didn’t realize Focus supports Firefox Sync! I’ll try it out. Thanks!

I just tried it, and it does not appear that Focus supports Firefox Sync at this time.

Doesn't Safari use Manifest v3 that Chrome is getting a lot of flak for switching to? How does Safari's implementation avoid crippling ad-blockers?

It's not precisely manifest v3, but it has similar limitations. Safari went from not supporting ad blockers at all to supporting limited ad blockers, so there wasn't exactly a change to get mad at.

I will not buy an iPhone until I can put uBlock Origin on it. My iPad is nearly unusable as a web browsing device, although it's outstanding in every other respect.

I completely agree, having Firefox with uBlock on Android is really great! I wish more Android users knew and cared about personal security so they'd take advantage of this awesome capability.

Apple's entire platform is so locked down, it definitely comes off as somewhat user-hostile to me. That said, my mom doesn't care about this aspect in the slightest.

iOS supports ad-blockers. Granted they're not uBlock Origin—they basically just giant dictionaries of domains to block—but they do work and work well.

They don't buy YouTube ads, newsletter popups and cookie notices, among other annoyances.

Unusable? A bit hyperbolic no? Ad Guard worked fine for me. I've moved to 1Blocker for cross app tracking protection.

No, it's unusable. YouTube has ads. Other websites have ads and cookie banners.

The web with uBlock is entirely different. I've grown used to it and I'm not going back.

you can actually use ublock origin through the Orion browser! it’s still relatively new, but it’s a nice browser. it’s also available on macos and supports syncing. you can use chrome and firefox extensions with it

It's getting more locked down too. It used to be great for hackers, we could root the phone and do all sorts of things. Now there's stuff like hardware remote attestation getting in the way.

I'm thinking there's no point in owning an Android phone anymore. They aren't trustworthy devices, they offer increasingly less user freedom at the cost of a less refined experience. It seems like they're just gonna become worse iPhones, all the problems and none of the benefits.

I am sorry. By what definition possible would Android be 'the underdog'?

It's the most used mobile OS worldwide, by far. Owned, developed and release by the world's largest ad and web company.

OTOH these is a wodespread sense that people who can afford iStuff will get that, and only the poor will get Android. In that sense I don't think it's crazy to call Android the underdog.

Is that an American thing? It's definitely not generically widespread, and there are non-iPhone devices that are premium and even sometimes cost more (check any of the Fold designs).

I think it is.

That sounds pretty American. In my country there's lots of people that will gladly spend for a Galaxy S22+ whatever and never turn to see the iPhone even expensive Xiaomi phones have a lot of customers.

There's tons of expensive Android phones too, not just cheap ones. Honestly you need to widen your horizon a bit.

A Galaxy Z Fold4 - Samsung costs $1800 before tax. Form factor only available on Android. Even a Xiaomi 12 Ultra Phone costs over EUR1000 in Europe.

I have a cheap-ish Pixel 4a bought at launch. Never had a complaint with it, went through all the updates, I use it for mapping and listening to music daily as well as reading RSS.

Never a slow down or any glitch, except for connecting some Bluetooth devices.

As with all software, YMMV. At least Google is not throttling its CPU behind my back.

Also, Snowden has outed Apple as one of the corps complying with any government for customer data so don't get too high on your horse.

I prefer to root the underdog

Outstanding pun

Did people not understand that the lack of "for" in that sentence was a pun about rooting Android?

I think it’s more about what makes a substantive comment

while it may be an outstanding pun, commenting that it is doesn’t really add to the discussion. it feels rather like a reddit comment chain, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but also isn’t really the culture on HN

I see enough replies containing only compliments on HN to suggest that positive reinforcement is a segment of the HN culture.

iOS is not better than android when it comes to security. It's at best equal, and in most perspective, slightly worse.

Compare Zerodium's payout for iOS vs Android:

https://www.zerodium.com/program.html

iOS security was bad enough in 2020 that it even lead to:

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/14/zerodium-pauses-acquiri...

> Zerodium this week announced that it will not be purchasing any iOS exploits for the next two to three months due to a high number of submissions. In other words, the company has so many security vulnerabilities at its disposal that it does not need any more.

Android FCP zero-click has been keeping higher price than iOS for a few years now. iOS iMessage RCE+LPE has been lower price than SMS RCE+LPE on android for a few years. In almost every comparison, iOS has the same bounty as android or cheaper.

This, despite the fact that iOS bugs have more demand because of more premium targets.

There could be loads of reasons for this price difference other than supply. Android's higher market share, the ease of further exploiting any priv esc, the fact any zero day will patched much slower for a majority of devices...

iOS used to fetch higher price years ago - that was when they had less market share as well.

No, it's because it is much easier to find security vulnerabilities on iOS than on Android.

I don't buy the privacy advantage. Security wise also it seems it's the other way round as long as you can have your device up to date. That is, even though iOS gets regular updates there seem to be more zero day vulnerabilities in it.

Efficiency, esp when it comes to UI animation not stuttering is where iOS has done a tremendous job.

Most popular mobile OS in the world is the underdog?

In terms of UX and mindshare, Android is the underdog.

Subjective opinion.

My wife won't switch to iOS device due to UX in iOS

Neither will mine, but not for any rational reason. She's just an Android Freak.

I find the supposed iphone simplicity argument fascinating.

I had to help a family member open a PDF file of a ticket sent via email on an iphone.

It was opened via webmail in safari, it just downloaded the file, that was it. No way to open it. No way to find the downloads from Safari.

Eventually I figured out how to drag down from the home screen, search for downloads, scroll down a bit, then found the downloads folder with the file inside it to open it.

Contrast to android where it downloads the file, then offers to open it.

The whole "iphone is easier to use" seems like a bit of a myth.

I don't disagree that iOS handles downloaded files terribly (Safari does notify you when your file is downloading/finished, but in a very subtle way by adding a download icon navigation bar).

However, using an anecdote of an uncommon use case being bad hardly supports the conclusion of your last sentence.

Opening downloaded PDFs is uncommon?

iOS Safari opens PDFs directly. It's a file format with native support. I don't know why the OP had to do those steps, as that never happened to me... maybe the site hosting the PDF informed the wrong MIME Content type, so the file was downloaded as a generic "binary" file.

Content-Disposition: attachment.

I'd expect uncommon cases to be where UX simplicity and expected behaviour is the most important?

That's when you actually have to guess about what's happening.

If the UX falls apart whens you leave the 3 most common patterns, your thing isn't easy to use

Maybe if you look at uncommon use cases collectively, but not when you just take a single uncommon example (a pdf file with forced download via Content-Disposition: attachment) and extrapolate it to the entire OS.

Almost any kind of file management where you need to do something other than use a file created within the app itself is a pain in iOS compared to Android. At least, it was historically, I know more recently iOS has gotten better with exposing the file system to consumers.

I really don't think this is an "uncommon use case", people do download files and stuff all the time, people wanna move their files around too.

You open Files and you see Downloads folder. Consistent across OS and devices. Explain to your family member how they have to learn new patterns because Samsung has different file manager than Pixel. Also explain Linux directory structure to them, while you’re at it.

You don't need to go to the file manager on a Samsung, it just opens in the default PDF viewer if you have selected one, or pops up list of PDF viewing apps if you have more than one installed and haven't chosen a default.

Linux directory structure doesn't even apply to Android. Hell, you can't even access / without root.

They seem to spar off each other. Apple is notorious for hanging back and refining new tech, Android is faster to innovate, ship, and iterate.

They’ve both got their pros and cons, innovations and derivatives. Neither are really ‘underdogs’.

I hesitantly disagree; the only thing better about Android in my experience is the Samsung Camera AI makes pictures pop in a way which is unrealistic yet pleasing to the eye.

Apple is the one pioneering features at this point, especially in the privacy space. Does Gartner cover this? If not, I wish they would do a quarterly feature matrix analysis.

The Apple pics might not look as good, but the Apple camera app is far smoother than flagship Android and the Apple pictures look more realistic.

I’m in the iPhone camp. Always have been. And I think Apple’s camera tech is better.

That said, some of the stuff Google has pulled off with the Pixel cameras is very impressive. Like the ability to shoot simple astrophotography.

Can you do wide selfies with apple phones?

You could argue Apple is at 20% world wide market share, but they have the lion’s share of the high end market so that’s kind of disingenuous.

Really I think the term “underdog” can only be applied to some individual Android manufacturers or any non-Android non-iOS based phone.

What makes something a UX underdog? I’ve never heard the term used that way.

Mindshare, sure.

I've a S10e, up to date, zero issues whatsoever with phone updates. Data breaches is another story, but I don't use Samsung services.

since when the most profitable company on the planet gets called an underdog? words have no meaning anymore?

They were implying Android is the underdog.

Google is not the underdog either by any measure...

But Apple is basically only their devices, and the iphone the biggest one from all of them.

Google is a myriad of services and their money is made from advertising and cloud. Android is just a very small part.

So when you compare smartphones then Google is the smaller player, it‘s only a small fraction of the company while the rest is doing totally different things.

> Android seems to be growing inferior to iOS in almost every way

Crazy statement. I have iPhone for work and it is horrible to use. I haven't met a single thing from UX point of view in iOS that is better than whatever is in Android. It's a complete downgrade IME.

I could argue the same. The UX experience on android is horrible and about the only valid point that people have with android is that is more customisable.

No offense to the two of you but I recently switched to iOS for my personal phone and still have an Android phone at work. The UX of both are now basically the same and they keep copying each other every time one of them does something good. I was actually shocked by how close they are.

Not really. Android is a clusterfuck of features and inconsistency. Even back gesture is bolted on. On iOS it is part of OS framework.

If you say so. Swiping left goes back on the two of them in a way I have trouble distinguishing. I lament the absence of intent on iOS but the integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystems is nice. Apart from that, well, can’t say I have seen much of a difference personally.

It’s possible to view any OS as horrible to use really. Usually it comes from a mindset of “anything that isn’t how I’m used to is bad”. Which is especially likely if it’s only used a bit for work.

I tried to go to iOS just for curiosity since 2 years but I think the next device will be an Android again for these reason:

- you cannot simply install applications outside the AppStore

- developing applications even for personal use requires macOS, an Apple developer account, etc

- it lacks of decent applications, such as an email client that works, thanks to limitations imposed by Apple on what the applications can do in background

- it comes with stupid limitations. Such as you can't to a software update on a mobile network (why? To this day with cheap plans that gives you 50G or even unlimited data for 10 euros at month a lot of people no longer even have a landline internet connection and thus Wi-Fi at home, and have to use another phone in hotspot mode to download an update, this is pure insanity of Apple!)

- it works well if you are all-in in the Apple ecosystem, for example you have also a Mac, but it doesn't integrate with Windows (the Windows phone companion that lets you to receive notifications on the PC and other stuff is only available for Android, since iOS doesn't have APIs to do that stuff such as read notifications).

- the only browser allowed is basically Safari and this to me is very wrong for the open web (it's true that in Android you have Chrome, but you can install whatever browser you want, such as Firefox). Safari doesn't support progressive web apps for example for no reason, so you are forced to install an app while you could have used its PWA enabled website.

- you are forced to use Apple services, while in Android using Google services is an option (you can have an Android OS without Google Apps, even if it can be impractical I like having this possibility at least in theory). For example the only way that I found to backup my photos was to pay iCloud, since Google Photos (that did give you unlimited space back then) didn't work in background and thus you have to open it to sync (something that is pretty useless for a backup tool that you want to be always running...)

- it's less user friendly, there are things that are complicated for no reason. This was confirmed by a lot of people that transitioned to iOS and find it more difficult to use

- to this day it's practically impossible to mod (jailbreak) an iPhone to overcome its limitations. In the past there was jailbreak that really did solve many of the issues, but this day it's nearly impossible

- lack of support for open standards, such as the usage of the proprietary lightning connector instead of USB-C (something that is now a requirement in the European union by the way)

From the hardware perspective, it's well built for sure, but I find it too expensive for what it offers. The iPhone that I actually have (an iPhone XS bought new for 600 euros) it seemed expensive when I bought, now to get an iPhone of a similar range (that is an iPhone Pro) you have to spend at least than double that price! A decent Android that is enough to me for my daily tasks can be bought for 200 euros, a top spec one for 600. To me the added cost of an iPhone is not justified.

Over the years, my family has had a mix of iOS and Android devices and even though the Android device was generally less expensive up front, the iOS device ended up being less expensive overall because after a few years the resale value was still pretty good. Generally, they all were decent devices.

All of your points about installing software outside of the app store are valid and if that's what you need, iOS is not for you and I think that's okay. Choosing the platform that best supports the software you need to run has always been how you decide what to buy. The other way around doesn't make any sense. It would be like buying an PS5 and then saying it sucks because you can't run Excel on it.

The resale value is not that great either. My phone, bought for 600 euros 2 years ago (it was already an older mode, by the way) now has a value of 200 euros if we see the price if sold used to a person through an online used items announcement marketplace, if sold to a store it has zero value.

Anyway I don't usually sell phones, when I change a phone (that is not often, till now I only has 3 smartphones, two Androids and the iPhone that I currently have, on average I keep a phone 5 years, especially my first Android was born with Android 4.0 and I stopped using it with Android 7, changing trying out all the custom roms that were available) I usually end up giving it to somebody in my family anyway that upgrades its old phone.

> All of your points about installing software outside of the app store are valid and if that's what you need, iOS is not for you and I think that's okay. Choosing the platform that best supports the software you need to run has always been how you decide what to buy. The other way around doesn't make any sense. It would be like buying an PS5 and then saying it sucks because you can't run Excel on it.

I think it's not only that. I think that Apple practice should be considered illegal (and I think the European commission will need to take an action like they did with Microsoft and Google) since it's abuse of dominant position. You are forcing the developers to pass trough the App Store, and thus be forced to support payment trough Apple Pay and thus give a percentage (that is not small, by the way) of your profit to Apple. This to me is not right.

Having the possibility to install third-party "app stores" on Apple devices should be a requirement by law. I don't said that it should be simple, a user may do something difficult to do that (if the reason is to protect unaware users that would otherwise install malware on their phones) but it should be possible.

> I think that Apple practice should be considered illegal

If they go down that path, it will affect Apple but it might be devastating to other closed platform vendors. These are interesting times...

Yes, this law should apply to any operating system in a general purpose device, such as a PC, smartphone or tablet. In reality the only vendor that doesn't allow the installation of software from sources that are not the official store (as far as I'm aware of) is Apple. I'm not saying that it should be easy, in Android you have to go trough the settings and enable an option, this is correct since you don't want people installing .apk that are received via email with one click, but it should be possible to do.

Done forget about the Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony game consoles! Those are what I'm most excited for being opened. I would love to be able to run stuff I write on my PS5.

To me that is (to this day) less important, since modern consoles are actually PCs with a custom form factor, that you can build with mostly off the shelf parts. In the past it was different, but consoles were always modded (except the modern ones, but I would say for a lack of interest).

Yea but atleast I can use a real web browser on Android. And still change almost everything.

How good is the 13 Mini, I think it might be the most underrated iPhone ever made

the exact opposite is true, Apple iPhones have never been worse than now.

1. almost every generation has some kind of hardware defect that you only find out later that lots of people report in enthusiast forums. Be it the loading cable, display bending, weird issues around refresh rate straining your eyes.. it never ends. And no, the hardware doesn't even feel better than the competition anymore. I had the iphone 13 in my hands and it felt like any cheap plastic phone.

2. The UI is horrible, the false perception of iOS being "simple" is perhaps the biggest marketing success in human history. I had an iPhone 13 for a few hours and there were already countless things I found incomprehensible. E.g Undiscoverable gestures or extremely hard to achieve gesture to swipe up to remove an opened app. For one ui menu on the right middle side I had to press part of the hardware button on the right (what on earth, a hardware button to activate a touch ui!). Since when is the point of using a touch device to: ignore the touch interface and instead use a hardware button. Not even considering yet the weird annoying popup ui in the first place, why would you ever put something like that on the middle of your screen.

3. scrolling is slower, they have some kind of terrible human-like algorithm where you have to gear up the scroll speed as if you're manually accelerating a dial every time you want to scroll down. This is why they had to invent all these little tricks to scroll back up to the top of a page with a shortcut. Scrolling is just too slow, on huge pages it's fingerhurting work to get to the bottom.

4. The notch is objectively terrible, it was never good, it was never acceptable to put camera holes or notches into the display but the notch is the worst, most biggest affront to visual consistency. It almost has comical qualities, "oh yes, please put a huge black block directly into my visual field and make it so I am forced to look at it, I can't even install an app to hide it".

5. The amount of popups when I open any kind of app or the appstore is incredible. I think I had at least 4 consecutive popups before it lets me do anything.

6. The prices are a riot, it's a designer luxury item. I guess in the US the prices seem somewhat acceptable but anywhere else in the world the value for this phone does not match the money you pay for it.

7. [insert here every other criticism, e.g about iTunes being required or any other of the dozens and dozens of legitimate problems]

This list is nowhere near complete. Meanwhile when I use my Android, my only complaint is that Samsung installed some default apps I don't want. That's literally it. Everything else works fine for me. I had an iphone 5s for years, while I was using it I liked it but nowadays when I have a comparison with a fluid, new android phone it cannot compete. To me it is clear that the success of Apple is a psychological success of two things mixed together: speed and beauty. The ui is always fast, therefore there is a false impression that it's simple and good. Beauty likewise gives a false impression that the ui is good in a general sense when in reality it's not better.

I agree with many of these points. To me, the iTunes requirement is probably the worst. The idea that I'd be forced to use what is effectively a shopping application just to load files on my phone is pretty abhorrent. Regarding the Samsung default apps, I agree that there are too many of them and they can be annoying. But they're easy to deal with. My favorite approach is to use "pm uninstall" in adb. I have most of the package names saved in my notes anyway, so it's just a copy and paste job. Alternatively, for less technical people, they could either uninstall the apps manually or just disable them if I uninstalling an app is disabled.

What the fuck are you talking about? Almost all of your points are either blatantly false, or so subjective they clearly show how biased you are regarding iPhones. Like for example « scrolling is slower » what the hell is that? I spent 10 years on Android and have switched to an iPhone 2 years ago and this is just not true.

> The prices are a riot, it's a designer luxury item

Yeah they’re expensive. You’re not entitled to buy everything that exists. An iPhone is not a need. Plus, price is not an issue since you hate them anyway.

> The amount of popups when I open any kind of app or the appstore is incredible.

I have no idea what you’re even talking about. There are things that suck in the App Store (the sponsored apps that appear before the searched results for example) but popups? The only time there are popups is on install when you try to install an app and your iCloud account is not linked. FYI it’s the same on the Play Store.

> The notch is objectively terrible

Subjectively. It doesn’t even lose screen real estate since the space around the not h is used for icons and clock.

> scrolling is slower » what the hell is that? I spent 10 years on Android and have switched to an iPhone 2 years ago and this is just not true.

You perhaps never scrolled with ublock origin and firefox. Do it once and you will note the difference. (Unless you work in adtech).

So it‘s a firefox+ublock problem, not iOS…

GP means is faster. It can be thought an iOS problem considering running this combo isn't allowed on iOS.

I’m not sure I follow. GP is talking about slow scroll on iOS, I don’t understand how it relates to scrolling on Firefox with uBlock? It’s faster than scrolling on iOS?

Not sure what it has to do with adtech either. Or how scroll speed is a limiting factor in a day to day workflow.

>price is not an issue since you hate them anyway

If it's significantly cheaper then you can put up with something being worse. In this case only one of the two apply.

> You’re not entitled to buy everything that exists.

Interesting how do you came to the conclusion, that they cannot afford it. It's possible to have money and still believe that something has poor value for its cost.

I would argue that is true for the iPhone, given for eg Pixel or other flagships are easy to buy at half of the cost of the iPhone.

Did you install all the same apps that you have in S22+ in iPhone 13 mini? Likely not. Please do fair comparison.

If you install 100 + apps in iPhone it is also terrible.

Yes they have as many apps in common as possible.

Both 256GB versions.

The Android does get more use, but there's no denying the camera lag has been there since day one with the S22+.

Previously I used (and still adore) the S10e. It's camera lag actually seemed slightly better than with the S22+, but still inferior to any recent iPhone (10x or newer).

Can you rollback updates on Android?

What's the android security flaw? As far as I've read pegasus has 0 click exploits on iOS that has successfully infiltrated hundreds of people. I couldn't find documented android examples.

I've read android has some malware that you need to click "allow from web" and manually install.

I have some sensitive stuff on my phone so security is my number 1 reason for getting an Android.

I mean, Private, Security, and Efficiency may not be so orthogonal if you consider what sort of data collection is desired for ad targeting, its basically everything. What apps are installed, which are used most, when? where? Which bluetooth and wifi devices are nearby?

Truly the data scraping could be enormous, needing resources and lots of them.

Data collection is not the reason that Android is a bloated mess.

John Gruber (yes, an Apple person) recently re-voiced the opinion that Google seems to have lost interest in Android and I keep coming back to it.

Yes it exists, they add features.

But they used to trumpet it a ton, add tons of new stuff. Try to keep expanding it like to tablets and other things.

Now it’s basically phones, they don’t seem to try anymore on tablets. Phone makers come up with the new things (like folding) not Google.

It sort of seems more reactive than proactive.

I don’t know. I’m sort of spitballing as someone who doesn’t follow Android closely.

If I recall properly, Google adapted Android for folding screens prior to Samsung's release of their Z series.

I thought I remembered that some vendor sort of hacked some big feature in for their first phone, but maybe it wasn’t folding screens. Could it have been the dual screen phones?

Sorry my memory is hazy too.

Microsoft Duo?

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