Somehow Apple maintains this perception that they make money on the hardware and therefore are trustworthy because they don't have any interests hostile to their users.
But when you look at what's really happening it's clear - they have a highly hostile interest to their users - they want to lock them into the ecosystem and then rent seek like crazy on services that their users have almost no choice but to buy.
This is why I love Apple products but I only buy the open ones that leave me choice to do what I want - which pretty much means I'm only buying Macbooks these days.
Can you elaborate? I own an iphone and pay for zero apple services. I imagine you’re thinking icloud? I have my phone backed up on the 5 gigs they give for free. photos is where data gets heavy. I previously ran things on google photos and paid, but recently moved to immich — either way it’s zero bucks for apple.
wrt hostility: they’re the most privacy focused phone provider out there (which is why they can’t produce an llm from user data)
Are you buying apps in the App Store or paying for digital goods (eg. signing up for streaming services) through iOS apps? Apple charges a 15-30% rent on all of that.
Apple also tracks and charges for conversions on ads for mobile games (eg. purchasing lootboxes on clash of clans) which makes them direct competitors with the other big tech ad platforms.
Yes, Apple's "1984" advertisement is looking extremely ironic nowadays. Reality is stranger than fiction.
Walled Garden is marketing speak. Walled Prison is the reality.
Its always been like this, but I don't think their target demographic cares. I remember 10 years ago I heard something like: "Iphone, the phone your mom uses." Not that its accurate. Blows my mind VIPs use iphones after Pegasus.. How could these people be so unaware?
iPhones, particularly with the advanced security/hardening turned on are light years in front of Android devices for protection against advanced/sophisticated actors. Which is why VIPs use iPhones.
Apple responded to Pegasus with Lockdown Mode, which is probably the most hardcore security modality that's ever shipped in mass produced consumer hardware.
Apparently Cellebrite is able to crack open iPhones but not phones running GrapheneOS. There's no doubt iPhones are reasonably secure but I wouldn't say they have "the most hardcore security".
This cuts both ways - ADP requires changing some settings on-device, and (in some cases I've heard) calling Apple to disable. So it is baked in, but it's hardly easy to enable and disable
GrapheneOS (which, FWIW, I do trust at least as much as ADP) has a web-installer IIRC, making it similarly easy to enable, but a little harder to disable for normal users. Moreover, it's not built-in to the Pixel. It's entirely third-party, and did not ship on mass-market hardware
Being an option on the default OS, with OEM support, can make all the difference sometimes
People have been getting zero-click hacked on iPhones by Israeli malware now also in use by ICE, even recently. I don't blame Apple too much given what they're up against, but zero-clicks are the worst thing possible.
[0] https://www.securityweek.com/paragon-graphite-spyware-linked...
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/eff-statement-ice-use-...
If your threat model is a nation state instead of the assholes on a push bike that steals your phone out your hand, you already have other problems.
Are androids getting "assholes on a push bike" to hack their phone? No.
Are androids getting "a nation state" to hack their phone? No.
Its objectively worse security to have an iphone.
Objectively it is not. You appear to be living in a parallel reality!
Empirical evidence doesn't support this. IIRC the bounty for an Android exploit is 500k more than an iphone... Let alone the number of people killed from an Android exploit is... 0? Iphone is at least at 1... Let alone the 1000 other VIPs.
Induction says, its dangerous to have an iphone. There is no deduction based answer here that has been validated by experiment.