On this particular issue, no. But I also make a habit of not leaving old apps that I don't use lingering around on my phone. And I'm pretty sure I know all of those haven't been bought out by a data predator, apart from 23andme.
I just trust what Apple has done in other areas for my personal privacy and security, and I know they have insanely high and probably unreasonable standards for their app stores. and I don't install obviously predatory garbage apps. I feel like I could have only achieved this level of confidence in my mobile device with iOS. And to be clear that's just an opinion :)
(to me, if some os is unable to have both freedom of installing apps/sideloading and security (with help of malware checking and other measures that keep bad stuff away), and only able to achieve that "security" only by completely locking down what apps can be run and how apps are obtained, it seems like either a failure to accomplish actual security there, or rather just a pretense to keep a platform locked down.)
Like, while it may sound annoying and nitpicky, android is not just "one option of the two", it has a bunch of versions/flavors/forks/whatever you wanna call it, that vary between manufacturers, and also alternative distributions that can be installed on devices, situations that iphone just does not have, at all or to that extent. (quite linuxy in that way if you squint real hard.) I'm struggling to worry about this whole debacle with google floating about whatever they're floating about (currently it's that vague) all that much, when android is that malleable.
There are also actual Linux phones and distributions, postmarketOS, environments like Phosh and Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish, and so on. These can also end up being treated as a "third option" when it's a bunch of different options, or even treated as non-existent, but these options are out there, available, modern, with phones you could just buy. The only case where "one option" is actually just one option is with iPhones.
I agree completely with you about the Android forks. That does allow for people do things right more than the way Apple does it. But it also allows people to do things wrong, and how many predatory mobile phone companies would see an opportunity to spy on customers if they won't notice? Just like none of us would buy a computer and use it without formatting and reinstalling the OS first, there are tons of people who didn't reinstall the OS and kept installing shitty malware. That's the case that I'm worried is much more prevalent among the American population than we realized. Tons of factors go into it, but I think the fact that we distilled all of our information received regularly down to something that's processed thru two operating systems before reaching human eyes and ears is something worth looking more into. Or at least I think it's a damn good reason to start over and begin with doing things the right way, given everything that we know now.
While regular people probably aren't going to mess with custom roms on android and it's kind of self-selecting situation there, they very much might pick a Samsung phone, or Motorola phone, or some other phone, that will have different flavors of android, and may have some meaningful differences and will have some amount of control over them that phone makers have be spread out between their manufacturer and not just google.
Some people also aren't really gonna be any less susceptible to scams that aren't tied to app stores or apps at all. Might as well lock down the browser and phone app then as well.
edit: Pixel ordered and GrapheneOS incoming, goodbye iOS.
[2022] https://lifehacker.com/great-now-the-apple-app-store-has-mal...
[2022] https://www.darkreading.com/cyberattacks-data-breaches/malic...
[2024] Fraudulent LastPass-impersonating app allowed in App Store: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/2024/02/warning-fraudulent-a...
[2024] "Scammed by the top result for 'Bitcoin wallet' in Apple App Store": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685272
[2020] Scam subscriptions: https://blog.lockdownprivacy.com/2020/11/25/how-to-make-8000...
[2015] Thousands of malware-containing apps built using infected version of XCode slip through App Store review: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34338362
Those all fall under the category of shitty apps I would never install on my iPhone or Android phone. So, Apple's privacy standards and policies, and walled gardens for better or worse, kept me closer to what I was looking for regarding personal privacy and security than I could have gotten with Android. Who knows if anyone checked those same apps I use to see if the Android versions are different or contain malware, but my sense is that it's much easier to slip it in the Play Store than Apple's App Store.
https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/672xcq/nytimes_how_u...
Uber did this and didn't get abruptly terminated from Apple developer program...
Walled garden - 0
3rd Party store - 1
> Apple's privacy standards and policies, and walled gardens for better or worse, kept me closer to what I was looking for regarding personal privacy and security
Apples privacy policy allowed bad actors into the App Store. Considering the levels of Kafkaesque pissing about we see reported on here from devs for non-issues, on a weekly basis, you should have a zero tolerance.