Android has 50 Times Malware as iOS?

So says Tim Cook.

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That sounds like a claim one would hear close to closing time at the local bar.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman
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It is based on counts like "we had 2 cases of malware on iOS and there were 100 cases on Android". These figures of course are very volatile, and partially they are related to policy and "Android has X times more apps than iOS".

Reply to
Rob

"Why is that? It's because we've designed iOS in such a way that there's one ‌App Store‌ and all of the apps are reviewed prior to going on the store."

Ya, taking the control away from the user and making it in essence "their device" with a rather limited set of things the user can do from within their sandbox helps.

Apple's "genius" such as it was was rejecting the idea that the majority of users particularly cared about Apple sandboxing them, so long as the device is slick and cool status symbol and otherwise works rather well the majority of the time, and Apple's plenty good at that.

Reply to
bitrex

"Reviewed"? Do they examine the source code to see if there are any signs of potential malware? Or, do they just play with the app -- for a day/week/month -- and verify no malware APPEARS in that period of time?

"Mr. Cook, if Android has 50 times the malware that you have, then EXACTLY HOW MUCH DO *YOU* HAVE? Your customers would surely like to know!" (and, if your "solution" to the problem was so good, how do you have ANY?)

Reply to
Don Y

Apple does automated static analysis, and prohibits things that can circumvent that, e.g. any form of interpreter.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Assuming this requires delivering your sources (could also be done by analyzing the binary), how can they know if my software doesn't "make a pest of itself" by hammering on some service, repeatedly? Or, based on the current time-of-day, etc.?

[Presumably, each app runs in its own, protected/isolated container]

Said another way, how do they have ANY malware?

Reply to
Don Y

Mr. Cook: Do you know how many bugs your iphone sw has? How many of those bugs are directly related to malware attacks? Wonder how they would respond....

Reply to
Three Jeeps

My tongue-in-cheek point, above, was essentially, "Why do you have ANY bugs/malware?" (if you know about them, why do they STILL EXIST?)

"Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Reply to
Don Y

Because customers would not upgrade to a newer iPhone if there were no bugs, annoyances or security holes to motivate them. Were Apple, or any other company, to produce a phone that is substantially free of problems, there would be no incentive to upgrade to the latest and greatest model. Some customers might upgrade because they can't live without the latest new and improved phone features. However, most will upgrade in the vain hope that the latest model would be free of the bugs, vendor supplied malware, irritating notifications, useless bloat, and power sucking background spyware, that is making their lives miserable.

Were Apple, or any other vendor, to actually produce an almost perfect phone, that would actually function in an expected manner and be reasonable priced, it would sell spectacularly well. However, it would also be the last phone that Apple will sell to that customer.

New features and functions get added to a phone faster than bugs get fixed. Were Apple to advertise its newest models with an identical feature set as the previous model, the reviewers and pundits would have a wonderful time asking why anyone would pay money for a new phone with nothing more than bug fixes to distinguish it from the previous model. In other words, new features and functions sell, while bug fixes do not. So, each new model has to have something new to justify the expenditure, but should never be perfect:

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The bugs, malware, spyware and annoyances are here to stay.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You just contradicted yourself. Is it bug fixes, or new features that motivate people to upgrade?

Anyhow. the reality is that every new version has:

  • some new features (which are increasingly pointless and unnecessary, or in software no-one used anyway),
  • some bug fixes (usually things people have learned to avoid, or in software that no-one uses any more), and
  • many more new bugs than were fixed from the old version.

People upgrade because they lost, scratched or broke their phone, or because the battery died and isn't replaceable. And because having a new phone makes them feel "special". And occasionally for performance reasons (more storage, or better network support usually)

CH.

Reply to
Clifford Heath

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. Users are primarily motivated by new models that fix bugs, irritations, annoyances, and design errors. Pundits, critics, YouTube influencers, reviewers, 10 best phone article authors, benchmarkers, neighborhood geniuses and tech hair splitters are motivated by new features. The problem is that a new phone needs both new features and bug fixes in order to sell. It's just that the flashy new features arrive faster and earlier than the dull and boring bug fixes, which most buys simply assume will eventually be fixed by the manufacturer for free.

I need a new feature. I want the phone to include a rhyme dictionary so that I can email poetry.

That was the situation up to about 5 years ago where phones would regularly hang, crash, lockup, or go insane and require a reboot. Simple things, like self-corrupting OS and app caches were common. One of the marketing research groups determined that the top three complains were: Short battery life, hangs, and broken screens. To their credit, the industry seems to have taken notice and is doing they're best to fix these "bugs".

Very true. Look at the graph of iPhone security vulnerabilities per year at:

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Notice that there is an increase in iPhone vulnerabilities every other year. That's approximately the frequency of new IOS major update.

Sure. Smartphones are a fashion accessory, most users are terminally clumsy, and new IOS releases always suck more power from the battery. However, iPhones are also rather expensive:

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The minimum iPhone 12 mini is $700. A fully loaded iPhone 12 Pro Max $1,400. Deciding to upgrade to the latest greatest model can be a financially painful experience and generally inspires more motivation than cosmetics or even battery life. I know several people continuing to use smartphones with broken glass screen covered with tape. Others are tolerating the near death battery experience with an external battery bank or just leaving it connected to a charger.

Incidentally, I bought a Lenovo Moto G Power (2020) phone last year.

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Instead of the usual undersized 2000 ma-hr battery, it has an unusually large 5,000 ma-hr battery. With my normal daily use and only charging when the charge level drops to about 60%, I only need to charge the phone every 2 days. If I let it go to 30%, every 4 or 5 days.
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Before buying, I made sure I could disassemble the phone and replace the battery. Except for the heat gun to remove the back cover, it's quite easy:
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The video is a full tear down. The battery is easily removed starting at 4:29:
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iFixit repairability scores:
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The April 2021 update fixed a mess of irritating bugs. However, I suspect that it's the last update that will be received by this phone. Lenovo is terrible at keeping Android up to date.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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