I have iPhone SE 1st gen (circa 2016 or so) and iPhone 12 mini. One has iOS 15, another has iOS 26. I see almost no difference. If there was some Linux system with feature parity of iOS 6, I’d use it. But there’s no hardware that works properly, I assume. Or maybe there is, but it’s too expensive and too niche for now.
iOS is what I currently use because they seem marginally better than google for privacy lately, but I don’t trust any of it anymore with how easy all government orgs seem to be able to obtain methods of accessing things that they should have no way to do unless the user provides credentials or biometrics. The pre-ios-26 vulnerability is pretty bad and just requires visiting a website iirc too so probably be careful with those older devices if you’re still using them.
The biggest problem with android alternatives is google play attestation driving MDM, I do a lot of work with MDMs lately so I can’t really go that route. This style of lockdown where big brother (big tech companies) monitors everything about your phone seems to be where we’re going in the US with mandating identification to be proven to use devices, sign up for services, or otherwise interact with the internet. The noose is around our necks but the stools we’re standing on haven’t yet been kicked away.
I have iPhone SE 1st gen (circa 2016 or so) and iPhone 12 mini. One has iOS 15, another has iOS 26. I see almost no difference. If there was some Linux system with feature parity of iOS 6, I’d use it. But there’s no hardware that works properly, I assume. Or maybe there is, but it’s too expensive and too niche for now.
iOS is what I currently use because they seem marginally better than google for privacy lately, but I don’t trust any of it anymore with how easy all government orgs seem to be able to obtain methods of accessing things that they should have no way to do unless the user provides credentials or biometrics. The pre-ios-26 vulnerability is pretty bad and just requires visiting a website iirc too so probably be careful with those older devices if you’re still using them.
The biggest problem with android alternatives is google play attestation driving MDM, I do a lot of work with MDMs lately so I can’t really go that route. This style of lockdown where big brother (big tech companies) monitors everything about your phone seems to be where we’re going in the US with mandating identification to be proven to use devices, sign up for services, or otherwise interact with the internet. The noose is around our necks but the stools we’re standing on haven’t yet been kicked away.