Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more". Apple charges more because they don't sell you data or spy on you. There are system-wide ad-blockers, Firefox Focus is great, and there is a Signal app. Apple is actually going out of there way to make Safari harder to track - https://www.wired.com/story/apple-safari-privacy-wwdc/
They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.
> Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more".
True but I'd like to point out that different standards are being applied here when talking about Android's lack of privacy vs iPhone's privacy friendly policies. Namely there is a large post above on how Google Services Framework has access to everything in your phone so it is bad (and we need to do everything to get rid of it) simply because of what it _can_ do, rather than of what it actually does (because what it does largely depends on user settings, like for example if you want to backup your whole phone, obviously that's going to package and save all your phone's contents on Google servers).
Most of the privacy features you mention seem targeted to stop a certain type of information gathering (that of web based adtech, obviously those are Apple's competitors so it's not surprising) while it's not covering the biggest issue IMO with smartphones: information gathering by the system applications that you have no control over. Do we know how much information does Apple collect with their system software and store it associated with your AppleID and you have no control over that? I never used an iPhone so I'm curious, especially things like: location (nearby cell tower information, GPS and wifi networks), contacts, phone call log, SMS log, process list/applications running or installed, DNS logs, API calls logs.
> Being unable to disable AGPS is not the same as "iOS spies even more".
I just showed you one way that iOS spies on you that you can't turn off. All other default data collection is exactly the same between iOS and Android. N + 1 > N. Q.E.D.
> There are system-wide ad-blockers
Where? I'm talking about blocking ads and trackers in all apps, not just in web views.
> Firefox Focus is great
It doesn't use Gecko or Spidermonkey. It is not real Firefox.
> and there is a Signal app.
Which, as I already said, you can't set as your default SMS app.
> They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.
Even Google has declined to assist the US government. There is no difference here. Everywhere else, iOS is significantly worse.
> Apple charges more because they don't sell you data or spy on you.
Apple charges more because they know they have enough rubes that will buy into their marketing spiel, even convincing some software engineers to buy programmable devices they aren't allowed to program. Google doesn't sell your data either, and as I've already shown, Android spies on you less.
Most "full ad-blocking" requires being rooted on an Android device too. And you've obviously not done very much research about what data Apple collects vs Google. Simply using each OS will show you a big difference in philosophy. Google makes you approve all permissions when you install an app without clearly stating what it means. iOS apps have to ask for specific permission the first time they want to use GPS, camera, microphone, etc. Default apps? Yeah that's annoying, but it's not like you can't use Signal. And Google is currently working with the US government on many projects, which has caused many Googlers to quit the company.
> And you've obviously not done very much research about what data Apple collects vs Google.
I showed you exactly how Apple collects more data from iOS than Google does from Android. You're trying to Pee-wee Herman your way out of this with an "I know you are but what am I?"
> Google makes you approve all permissions when you install an app without clearly stating what it means. iOS apps have to ask for specific permission the first time they want to use GPS, camera, microphone, etc.
You're wrong — Android also asks for permission at the time the app wants to use a feature. More importantly, this has nothing to do with what data Google or Android collects, which is the whole point of this thread.
> it's not like you can't use Signal.
Moving the goalposts. You can't use Firefox. An SMS app is nearly useless if it can't be set to the default.
> And Google is currently working with the US government on many projects, which has caused many Googlers to quit the company.
Again, not by sharing user data with them, which is the whole point of this discussion.
Signal is not an "SMS app". Signal is an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, that just happens to also support SMS. Note that if you use Signal as your SMS app, to send SMS messages, they are not encrypted.
The whole point is that it falls back to SMS if the other party doesn't have Signal, so you don't have to think about it beforehand. It most certainly is an SMS app, and not being able to set it as the default makes it nearly useless.
>> There are system-wide ad-blockers
> Where? I'm talking about blocking ads and trackers in all apps, not just in web views.
Apple allowed them for about a year before reversing course. Lookup Adguard's blog posts for detailed history.
Their app was fantastic (I've still got an old version installed which is still working great on iOS 12.1) and allowed the use of standard tracking lists for systemwide blocking / firewalling.
My guess for why Apple reversed course is that they had no easy way of stopping spyware-masquerading-as-adblockers without blocking all.
They're also the only company who has been strong enough to stick up for their customers and publicly decline the US government assistance or backdoors into their products.