Recommending apple products

It is from the study @Anvil brought up.

It is however important to note that this was done on android 10 and iOS 13.

Apple is a surveillance company. I don’t care how many theatrics the company makes publicly all while cooperating with governments - nothing has changed. Did you see recently where they cooperated with the Chinese government to not lose any manufacturing facility in that county? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/apple-limited-a-crucial-airdrop-function-in-china-just-weeks-before-protests.html

No one should be recommending Apple products for any form of privacy - it is a joke to do so.

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^ this guy gets it. How come the Team Members here do not?

it is a bad idea to recommend Apple products if a user wants privacy – is this real life?

I don’t think Apple device should be “recommended,” but I think recommendations for Apple devices should be provided since they’re common. Apps, services, how to harden a bit, etc.

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I am unable to make a clear connection, here. Messenger is a communication platform and iCloud is a cloud service. Are you saying iMessage and messenger? iMessage is E2EE by default including messages, group chats, FaceTime, backups.

Regarding open source vs closed source, PG has a page on this, and it concludes like this.

When you evaluate software, you should look at the reputation and security of each tool on an individual basis.

To avoid biased decisions, it’s vital that you evaluate the privacy and security standards of the software you use.

Kinda feel like this statement is ambiguous. Would like to hear a clarification about this from PG team.

Privacy is a spectrum. Everyone has different needs, threats, and values. For some apple products are great recommendation since it offer great security without loosing comfort/convenience.

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All iPhones released from 2015 onwards are still supported/updated, it’s already 7 years (more info).

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If there is “literally zero difference”, the police can knock Apple’s door and tell “Hey, we know there is not a real E2EE. Please show us those bad guy’s files in the iCloud”. Right?

You don’t get any privacy when you use iFruit. Did you not see how Apple recently bent over backwards for the Chinese government so that the Chinese slave labor camps don’t get shut down because it would hurt iFruit’s profits? Did you not see that they violently beat protesters in China who didn’t want to continue making the iCrap products? Are you not aware that iFruit has actively lobbied against the “right to repair” as they want you to constantly buy their new iTrash when it comes out?

This is the privacy guides forum, right?

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iCloud already had E2EE on 12 services (Health data, Payment information, screen time etc). After the Advance data protection update, iCloud bring E2EE on to total of 23 services.

Yea, something like iCloud should get E2EE due to the scale of it. As apple set the standard of what secure cloud service looks like, others may follow apple’s lead, bringing E2EE to the masses.

IDK why I forgot about this. You might be able to trade in your iDevice and offset the purchase price of a new one.

So what’s the phone recommendation for mom & dad, or the grandparent who doesn’t understand technology? Telling them to fiddle with custom ROMS is not realistic.

I’m happy with Apple and would recommend it. But given the comments here what’s the realistic alternative. Don’t say Android.

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imho any iPhone released after iPhone 11(includes iPhone SE gen 2 & 3) is the way to go as of today. I would recommend doing your own research as people have different needs (eg: accessibility).

Please keep it friendly as per rule 3 of our CoC.

Probably either an iPhone or a Pixel. A few of my family members have GrapheneOS, but only because I flashed it on there. The web usb installer is rather easy to use.

(Also not ROM - No Android OS has ever been a “ROM”. They are just “Alternative Android OS” or “non-stock OS”).

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I second the recommendation for a Pixel running GrapheneOS for any family members. The OS will also push out new updates and ask them to reboot, so you know they’ll always have the latest security patches too.

I can understand a counter view, such as if you live thousands of kilometers away, or don’t really want to provide support. That is the important thing, is that they are supported.

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The guides should have a section for “Apple (devices) privacy tips),” but I believe that explicitly recommending Apple products per se is a bad idea. Apple’s unfree nature is particularly risky, as 98% of it’s code is close-sourced and the App Store (only way to get 3rd-party software on iPhones) is even hostile to copyleft open-source apps. In addition I think Apple likes to sell a false sense of security and privacy just like what antivirus companies do. The type of people who use an iPhone and believe their phone is always secure and private out of the box and protected by Papa Apple are more likely to get infected by some spyware (like NSO’s) and don’t even know as they have this false sense of security. Apple also has a very entangled attitude towards government regulation and requests. With the FBI, Apple sometimes deny and sometimes comply with their requests. In China’s case, Apple gives up protecting its users’ privacy (in this region) so it can continue to manufacture and sell iPhones in China, including: · saving iCloud decryption keys of iPhones sold in China in China, and also · the newly added limitation of iPhones’ AirDrop feature to 10 minutes once the Chinese government asked them after protests erupted in China. I think Apple (and Tim) has grown from the 2015 company that refuses FBI’s request to decrypt phones, to a company that is very weak and soft and repeatedly comply with govt requests. Apple already tried to add E2EE to iCloud once in 2020, but once FBI rejected they quickly removed it. Now they are adding it again, why will the FBI give the green light? I personally don’t trust iCloud’s new “E2EE” encryption and how it’s implemented.
Apple’s analytics are also quite suspicious. Once I requested a copy of my account data(you can’t even easily view and delete it online like with myactivity.google.com, you can only request a downloadable copy like with Google Takeouts, and wait some days.) I realized that despite my customization setting set to “off,” still every single link that I clicked and every single search that I performed in Apple media services (App Store, Apple Music, TV, Books, Podcasts, etc.) Were logged and stored permanently and exactly as-is (the search results are linked with my account instead of anonymized. With metadata - system version, time stamp, IP addresses. My account “personal recommendation” setting was set to “off” at all times and that is the only option) What’s even worse than Google is that I tried to get this scary tracking data deleted and found that there was literally no way to only delete the search history; only an option for deleting my account, which will cause everything including the apps I paid for in App Store and my iCloud files and my device warranty to get deleted, so I’m left with no way to clean up my data. With Android I just do “delete all” on myactivity.google.com and all the Google Play search history are removed, not to say GPlay is not the only way to get apps on Android (Aurora and F-droid as well.) Overall unless you only use Safari to use web apps, you are certainly tracked by Apple. Once you search and download an app such as downloading Firefox from App Store, you get logs like "account UID: xxxxx, IP: xx.xx.xx.xx, device: ‘iPhone 14,2’, time: “20221214T070001:001”, search keyword: ‘Fir’ ", "account UID: xxxxx, IP: xx.xx.xx.xx, device: ‘iPhone 14,2’, time: “20221214T070002:012”, search keyword: ‘Firefo’ " stored permanently without a way to remove them except complete Apple ID deletion. The iPhone + App Store combo definitely creates more analytics and logs than the Android + Aurora Store combo.
You can say I’m too paranoid but this is all just personal opinion. Also I’m not getting paid by anyone to write this reply.

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I really wont call it smooth. I’ve encountered minor gotchas with the installation of Graphene. Their USB-C to USB-C connection wont recognize the device in Linux. I had to purchase a “reliable” third party USB-A to USB-C connector. For a day I was worried I was not able to flash it properly. Custom ROM flashing is certainly not for the faint hearted.