iOS is in the OS section. Does it means it is recommended ?
Furthermore how does iOS compare to chinese deGoogled rom like Huawei and Chn Xiaomi?
iOS is not in the recommended OS section – under recommendations you will only find GrapheneOS and DivestOS. In the knowledge base (KB), which is distinct from the recommendations, yes there is information for iOS to make it as private as possible but as is noted in that very KB article, something like Graphene will have a higher privacy ceiling by virtue of being specifically designed for privacy and security while being FOSS.
Now in terms of my personal opinion, I would consider an iPhone more private than a degoogled chinese phone, as long as you don’t use iCloud features. This is because Apple doesn’t do a lot of the privacy-violating adware stuff a Xiaomi or Huawei would do and that you probably can’t fully escape even if you degoogle via adb. However, Apple does have China-based iCloud servers that I wouldn’t trust very much so if I were in China, I would keep away from iCloud features as much as possible.
Others on this forum will almost certainly disagree lol
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Which is why we have an iOS guide, (with some minor things you can do) but we’re not attempting to write a “how to fix Xiaomi/Huawei” guide. None of us have those devices nor would we buy them as they’re factually worse than the Pixel in terms of hardware security.
Those companies also churn out models anyway with fairly short support timeframes on the firmware anyway.
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Not just China iCloud. I checked my Southeast Asian country and it connects to iCloud in China because why not. You can bet your kidneys they snoop on you outside the EU/US.
I understand the concerns. What kinda of backdoors are known to Chinese phones ?
And for clarity, Chinese phones sold there come without Google by default anyway since Google is banned in China.
Edit : My confusion was that Windows isn’t mentionned in the KB which seems to indicate a list of OK OS, but in fact it was just by ressource constrain.