Apple's Lockdown Mode is nothing special

Privacy
22

I don’t think so. For instance, I have never heard of any OEM that would force the users to use only one specific web browser, so the users have no option to disable JIT if they wanted to. Or Play Games (Game Center on Android) that couldn’t be disabled on some devices. IMO, Lockdown mode features are pretty easy to get on any Android devices.

But sure, it’s easy to use for normal users, like an instant (privacy)noodle, where granular control have to be traded off.

However, I think the real issue on Android is that a lot of users will certainly miss some features that are available in Lockdown mode for a really long time. For example, 2G disable on Android that is available on Android 12+, but around 21% of people on Android are still running on Android 11. I think, many people stuck in this version without any hope to get any update from their manufactures. Unless, those users install custom ROMs on their devices, but that also comes with issues, and most probably don’t have an ability to do so, etc. Contrary to iOS users on a really old iPhone, they would get the feature without much hassle.

Nonetheless, it wouldn’t make any sense to get an iPhone today instead of any average Android device because of Lockdown mode.

1 Like
23

Yeah, they don’t lock you into a particular browser for general browser, but there’s still the issue of the webview. Which is an issue but not as much of one as Apple locking everyone into webkit

2 Likes
24

Ive seen plenty of phones with Android 12+ that do not have this feature

4 Likes
25

I have a (Samsung) phone that runs Android 12. I just checked and I do not see an option to disable 2g or enforce LTE only. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.

I’m presented with these options:

  1. 2g+3g+LTE
  2. 2g+3g
  3. 3g only
  4. 2g only

but no option for LTE only or no 2g

1 Like
26

According to the news:

If you have a newer Android phone (such as a Pixel 6, or some new Samsung phones) you can disable 2G right now by going to Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs > Allow 2G and turning that setting off.

Are you sure the option isn’t there?

1 Like
27

I’ll double check when I have the phone in front of me.

The settings I mentioned are in Settings > Connections > Mobile Networks > Network Mode

edit: I just double checked and these menus are not present:

Settings > Network & Internet > SIMs > Allow 2G

Do note that the article you linked to above states at the top that:

Update: This feature is only available on certain phones running Android 12. So far we have only confirmed it is available on the Pixel 6.

2 Likes
28

Call this number (can’t find a way to paste the number in here, forum messes it up…) on an Android phone then press phone information.

Now you should see the select preferred network type option. It is set on NR, LTE, and WCDMA, but when I go to settings and enable 2G, it is now set on NR, LTE, GSM, and WCDMA. If I go into normal network settings again and enable the LTE-only mode that is added by GrapheneOS and isn’t available on AOSP, I can see that it’s set to LTE-only.

Basically, these Allow 2G and LTE-only options are just shortcuts to these settings. I always come here to select NR/LTE manually because I don’t need 3G or 2G, even though the toggle for enabling NR/LTE only isn’t even in the normal settings.

On iOS, if you want to get the option to disable 2G, you need to enable Lockdown Mode, and you have no control over 5G, 4G, 3G, etc. But maybe there is a way to do this on iOS; if there is, please tell me.

1 Like