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.
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).
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”).
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.
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.
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.
That sounds more like your cable issue than an issue with the phone or GrapheneOS. I’ve used GrapheneOS since the days of the Pixel 3a XL being new (May 2019) and never had an issue on Linux.
I’ve only ever used cheapish Ugreen cables. Although these days I now use the official Google ones (because those UGreen ones only do 20W as opposed to 30W).
I purchased those with Google Play store credit.
I agree with you that this is paranoia, I respect your beliefs and views.
However, this does not contribute to having a rational discussion.
That is the thing that make me keep away from using GrapheneOS or recommending to others.
In terms of security
As I didn’t provide any reasons for recommending iOS for @Throwaway post.
iOS offer 7+ years of security updates and 5+ years of OS updates (let see how long they support iPhone 8) and also known to release zero-day patches breaking their update policy to older devices.
This is on top of defences in many layers of its core OS which includes but is not limited to:
XProtect
Yara (so you can even add your own rules)
Gatekeeper
System Integrity Protection (SIP)
Malware Removal Tool (MRT)
Core Suggestions
Incompatible Kernel Extensions (KEXT Exclusions)
Application Firewall (cannot be disabled)
pf Firewall (BSD firewall, optional)
FileVault (high grade encryption of all your data)
Core LSKD (kdrl)
Flask Security Architecture for flexible mandatory access control
File quarantine
Deactivation of TPM (where applicable) on a hardware level
eficheck
Protection against “Juice Jacking”
Passwords are hashed then the hash is stored in an inaccessible hardware encryption chip (T2 and Secure Enclave chip onwards)
Cryptographic Boot
Secure Enclave (T2, etc.) chip
Is isolated so even if a host device is compromised the Secure Enclave remains secure
Provides hardware control of camera
FIPS 140-2/-3 Conformance Validation Certificate
2018 onwards FIPS 140-2 Security Level 1
2019 onwards FIPS 140-2 Security Level 2
FIPS 140-2/-3 Security Level 3 in newer products
Access control settings permissions for functions like Screen Recording, accessing Files and Folders, Input Monitoring, and Speech Recognition.
Address space layout randomization (ASLR)
Device management built into Intel CPUs is blocked and is completely inoperative
Ability to deactivate hostile apps worldwide, immediately
Apple A12 Bionic and onwards corrects an unexploited hardware exploit in earlier Secure Enclave chips
Sign in with Apple
Generalized location in Maps App
Private translate App
Recording Indicators for Mic and Camera
Limited Photos Library Access for Selected App
Apps forced to Request to Track
Enable WiFi Private Address
Enable Local Network Privacy Access
Write XOR execute (W^X)
Kernel Integrity Protection
Pointer authentication
Device isolation
Apple publishes lots of details about how their security designs are implemented. They are pretty open about it, and their designs are well-thought-out and implemented comprehensively:
This in on top of the security provides by apple kernal/
All the apple’s OSes are based on XNU kernel (which is open-source) allowing apple to share security features across OSes.
XNU is a hybrid kernel, containing features of both monolithic kernels and microkernels, attempting to make the best use of both technologies, such as the message passing ability of microkernels enabling greater modularity and larger portions of the OS to benefit from memory protection, and retaining the speed of monolithic kernels for some critical tasks.
This is on top of E2EE encryption iCloud(if you choose to use iCloud). This includes 23 services.
iCloud Backup (including device and Messages backup), iCloud Drive: Includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers documents, PDFs, Safari downloads or any other files manually or automatically saved to iCloud Drive, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Safari Bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, Wallet passes, Passwords and Keychain, Health data, Home data, Messages in iCloud, Payment information, Apple Card transactions, Maps: Includes Favourites, My Guides and Search History, QuickType Keyboard learned vocabulary, Safari: Includes History, Tab Groups and iCloud Tabs, Screen Time, Siri information: Includes Siri Settings and personalisation and, if you’ve set up Hey Siri, a sample of your requests, Wi-Fi passwords, W1 and H1 Bluetooth keys, Memoji
Unlike other tech companies, apples is built on a privacy first model.
Many things are intentionally not encrypted by default so that Google can harvest your information. They do this in the name of providing better service, but Apple has shown that this can be accomplished with on device AI and still provide proper privacy.
I am pretty sure Android barely fills a 6th of that.
etc, etc…
Also, many if not all the stuff I listed aren’t considered by most of the people who buy a iPhone 
.
The reality is they actually do a very good job of “keeping up” and that is because they test things while they are still in Google’s betas (and not generally available).
It might actually surprise you, but GrapheneOS is actually not a whole lot different to the Android AOSP codebase. It’s one of the reasons why they only support Pixels and not a zillion other crappy phones that all have their own bugs and differences.
The reality is it’s less likely to, because they’ve done significant hardening. In fact while doing that they’ve also been credited with some discovery of some vulnerabilities in some of the Android security bulletins.
The point is they are a competent team, and it is not in any way fair to compare them with “some random Android OS” you found on XDA.
The kernel might be open, but basically everything else isn’t.
While that is true not everything is encrypted by default, don’t buy into the “Google harvests everything” because that isn’t true either.
Typically Android users, specifically GrapheneOS variety, use their own tools, or preferred methods rather than depending an an entire ecosystem from one company.
There are some specific things iOS does not do, and one of those things is separate user profiles.
The Pixel devices are pretty good. Simply listing a features page isn’t really all that meaningful.
Not only a good job. They more than often release security patches before Google does.
It would be good to have a separate “iSection” for Apple products in the guides with the caveat that using their products to acquire privacy is not completely 100% & that there are better options regarding privacy & security.
Thanks for your answer (and also not just saying apple bad…, apple sells data … and addressing on limitations of iOS).
Cool. My main concerns, comes from techlore videos (as they do not paint a good picture on android forks). I think I can believe that they keep up with security updates, as pointed out by many. However, it is unfortunate that this momentum is not much seen as Pixel reach EoL.
I refer to stock android. I can see how using an android fork allow for better privacy.
I am also curious for more security features that are in android and not on iOS.
Regarding user profiles, how this compare apple’s sandboxing that can be seen? How concern as a iOS user, I will be worried about not having a separate user profile?
All third-party apps are “sandboxed,” so they are restricted from accessing files stored by
other apps or from making changes to the device. Sandboxing is designed to prevent apps
from gathering or modifying information stored by other apps. Each app has a unique home
directory for its files, which is randomly assigned when the app is installed. If a third-party
app needs to access information other than its own, it does so only by using services
explicitly provided by iOS and iPadOS.
System files and resources are also shielded from the users’ apps. Most iOS and iPadOS
system files and resources run as the nonprivileged user “mobile,” as do all third-party
apps. The entire operating system partition is mounted as read-only. Unnecessary tools,
such as remote login services, aren’t included in the system software, and APIs don’t allow
apps to escalate their own privileges to modify other apps or iOS and iPadOS.
I agree as it is a bunch of jargon.
However, it is clear that,
I am more than happy to be proven wrong. I dislike how closed iPhone ecosystem is, how apple not allow easy sideloading for cool apps like UTM, and how iPhone doesn’t offer E2EE android text messages.
I think it is better to have sections like zone 1, zone 2 and zone 3 like in techlore videos than a separate “iSection”.
Zone 1: Little impact on convenience and usage
Zone 2: Mild impact on convenience and usage
Zone 3: For people who looking to go above and beyond
or something like this
Yeah, I think this is a really effective way to lay out certain things.
It misses out on family members of the sections or other close relationships. They mostly are a target aswell
Could you provide an example of this, as I am not very sure what you are refering to?
It is often overlooked that people who have close relation to the zones described as activists and journalists are exposed to a very similar threat. I also think that spies being in need of more measures than journalists is a misconception.
