My point is that people seem to think that this feature somehow makes it easier for Apple to spy on you.
In fact it doesn’t make any difference at all, since they already have full access to everything you do on the phone, so if you don’t trust them you shouldn’t use an iphone.
It gives users a false sense of security. The average user is far more willing to trust an arbitrary iPhone application than an arbitrary Windows application, do you not agree?
Except the iPhone is really not on the users side. I do tend to think the iPhone isn't going to spy on me, or at least if it is, it's going to be doing so to a much lesser extent than Android.
But it's also not going to, for example, let me install a web browser which is anything other than a Safari reskin.
There are other factors to 'being on the users side' than just privacy.
For example, my dad used to use Androids. Without fail, he would get malware on them, he simply could not resist bypassing the security prompt to click on something he wanted to click on. Or maybe he does not understand English, or the concept of malware enough to properly heed the security warning pop up.
With iPhone, it’s not possible, so there is no worry, and no malware. Same with the hardware changes. People like my dad, or my wife, or even me who have very little interest in technology simply want to trust their device. And this device is literally the key to their life, their financials, their personal data.
All I know is my life has been made much easier by slinging Apple devices at people in my family that they simply do not have a way to mess up.
I guess I just like my tech stack to be as open and unrestrictive as possible.
The argument that Apple provides more safeguards is a bit flimsy in my opinion. I honestly don't know what people think Apple is protecting them from, especially when Apple's own features have led to people being stalked (air tags).
Also, most iPhone users that I know tend to have bought their iPhone for cosmetic/style related reasons, or the camera. They don't seem to be all that privacy conscious, especially when their phone is loaded up with every social media app on the planet, including Tiktok!
Because the alternative is Android, which is very difficult to de-Google. Even if you do de-Google you need to open yourself up to a swath of security concerns. Why would I trust some internet account that is giving me a binary that compromises my phone for me? Should I trust that it will only do what they say it will do because they are a good person? Would they have nothing to gain for having complete control of my device?
So, if the choice of secure phone is between stock Android and stock iPhone, then I think iPhone is the lesser of two privacy evils.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm just pointing out that there is a tangible benefit to end-user privacy that is enabled by this change inasmuch as the features are advertised to work and inasmuch as I personally have investigated how they operate.
Certainly the CCP has other means to surveil their dissidents, and at a certain level of paranoia, leaving the cell phone behind might be a good idea. However that is a completely separate topic that does not deserve to be convoluted with this discussion.
It seems in the fervor to lambast Apple, very few people seem to be fully considering that the original feature is extremely problematic. People will often enable 'Everyone' when they need to exchange a file with someone, but forget to change it back. If you need any more evidence that this is so, I invite you to go into a public space and scan for Airdrop targets.
You get a little bit of security by trusting Apple. But Apple does not give you the option to also trust someone else.
You trade your freedom against short-term convenience. On the long-term it means that you have to accept all decisions Apple takes, even if you dislike them.
There is nothing which Apple Intelligence can do that a hypothetically evil Apple couldn't have done before, given sufficiently treacherous code in their operating systems. Thus if you use an Apple device, you're already trusting Apple to not betray you. These new features don't increase the number of entities one must place their trust in.
Whereas with apps like Gmail and WhatsApp on an iPhone, you must trust Google and Meta in addition to Apple, not in place of Apple. It doesn't distribute who you trust, it multiplies it.
Software, sure, but up until this I could at least trust that if I turn my iPhone off it's not spying on me. Now I don't even have that. It's amazing the people _on this site_ in particular don't see a problem with this, and think it won't be abused by three letter agencies and their foreign counterparts.
Depends on scenario. If you steal a phone from a bag on the subway, you'll never be able to get that photo but can probably lift the print right off the phone itself. So maybe iOS has better-yet-still-mediocre protection against snooping yet inferiorly-mediocre guards against identity theft. Yawn.
In neither case is the phone meaningfully protected against serious attack. Why must we have this argument? It's a cute feature. Use it.
My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime.
Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence that apple can pass to the authorities? They made my phone a snitch?
This isn't about security or privacy, I don't care about encryption or hashes here, this is about trust. If I can't trust my phone, I can't use it.
If you are privacy paranoid an iPhone is the only phone I would trust these days.
You can disable essentially all data collection, the hardware encryption on the device is the only one I trust, their business model so far does not revolve around you being the product but rather a consumer and you get years of guaranteed security updates.
I like being able to trust my device and my kids device, if you wan't something to hack on get a pinephone or something
the reality is that billions of people need to trust their phones with their most personal information, fininaces and lives and apple's policies while sometimes annoying do a lot to build that trust
they aren't a big secret and if you don't like it you're free to not buy their products
This is true. The privacy threat model of an iPhone is absolute trust in Apple that has more control over your device than you do. For me, it doesn't compute.
It's not misleading, even if you have the device, there is no way currently on iOS to secretly do nasty things like remote audio and video monitoring.
Also doing all those steps you mention are meaningless is many cases because an attacker close to you (think bitter divorce or corrupt business colleague) can just grab your phone for a minute and your goose is cooked.
In fact it doesn’t make any difference at all, since they already have full access to everything you do on the phone, so if you don’t trust them you shouldn’t use an iphone.
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