My six year old iPhone still receives software updates
As an android user, I looked at the phone list for iOS 18, and I was jealous.
Google and Samsung now provide updates for 7 years, and Fairphone provides updates for 8 years.
From what I can tell, Apple doesn’t promise a set number of years for updates. The iPhone x got about 5 years of updates before support was dropped, but Apple will occasionally give security updates to older devices if they’re severe enough.
First thing: Privacy. I am aware that iOS is not entirely private too, but I trust Apple Photos much more than Google Photos. You can even enable end-to-end encryption iirc.
Second point is control over my data. I can easily export my photos from Apple Photos as files, whereas Google maliciously separates Photos and Metadata upon export. In my experience this is the same for a lot of other services as well. Being able to easily export my data enables me to escape the walled garden more easily should I get fed up with one system. I also try to use as many open source services as possible for this as well as other reasons.
Apple has a lot of malicious practices too, especially when it comes to EU citizens and third-party app stores, etc. - but in my experience Google is no better.
Lastly, I considered switching to an Android with Graphene OS (privacy focused Android derivate) a couple of times, but the added control over your data comes with a lot of other inconveniences. So for now, I’m just sticking to iOS.
Apple Photos is more private than Google Photos
Sure, but if you care about privacy at all, then surely you wouldn’t use either of them anyway? You’d use Ente Photos (available for both OS), or Immich (available for both OS), or any other private solution? So this shouldn’t really be a factor in choosing between Android and iOS. Same with the export point. Both have good options for photo backup, and neither Apple Photos nor Google Photos are one of them.
Pretty sure on iOS any other gallery app is just a frontend to the photo stock app. Beside, you can encrypt the whole thing on iCloud so it’s safe (which is what I do)
Yeah, all gallery apps show the same on-device photos, the difference is where they backup/upload them, which is the part important to privacy.
Apple iCloud having the E2E encryption feature is definitely an advantage over Google Photos. All I’m saying is that neither really have much to do with the OS. Google Photos isn’t even a preinstalled app on most Android phones, just one of many options you could install, same as on iOS.
Yeah but if you disable the iCloud upload for the photos app they are all on-device
Same goes for any other app, including Google Photos
Except google photos will nag you every few days to enable cloud sync if it’s disabled when you open the app and uses dark patterns to nudge towards accepting. I doubt iOS does that.
So don’t install it, use a better app. It’s just some app, not part of the system like iCloud on iOS.
