> I'm curious why you mention Google though, their security record on Android is a lot worse than either Windows phone or IOS. In many ways I feel like they are exactly Windows in 2003 with regard to "its secure if you use our APIs" kind of security.

Chrome (OS)'s security model is a lot better, and compared to Android it was designed more in-house. Android was an acquisition and has more legacy design baggage (though of course the vast majority of the code has been written by Google at this point).

Android's security is actaully fantastic. The problem is the inability for google to distribute security updates. In 6.0 I now get monthly security updates and there is even a "security update version" of like "november 2015" in the status.

The latest junk even made it into Android 4.1 devices for security updates. But that is neither here nor there, the fact that we have 4.1 devices is a problem.

Android's system security design is inferior to that of iOS.

But, iOS's superiority (a) derives in significant part from Apple's total control over the hardware platform†, and (b) comes at the cost of a lot of user control tradeoffs that nerds like us tend to hate.

Really, to suggest that Android's security is at parity with Apple's, you'd have to be arguing that Apple does a terrible job at exploiting their inherent advantages of control over hardware and control over what's allowed to run on the platform. Apple does not do a terrible job at those things.

† Yes, Google controls some of their hardware, but they have an ongoing support requirement for a lot of hardware they have no control over at all, and will have that requirement forever, which limits their options.

On the other hand, I'm unaware of any automated analysis of applications on the iTunes App Store, dynamic or static. Doing this properly isn't in Apple's DNA. For example, when XcodeGhost apps infected some hundreds of millions of users, it took Apple days to take down the affected apps, seemingly waiting for third party reports instead of simply scanning the entire store for the XcodeGhost signature themselves.

That's true. My friend is doing a company to address that now:

https://sourcedna.com/

My 4.3, 4.4 and 5.0 devices from Samsung and Asus (operator free) are yet to receive the said updates.

Google internally, especially post Chinese misadventure, has pretty great security. It isn't necessarily in Android, but their cloud services are great, and internal security is great.

In Android, Google's stuck between a rock and a hard place because so much of the distribution is handled by the downstream vendors. Were I google in setting up the distribution agreements, I'd be much more strict on the requirement for getting Google services on the phone, like reasonable minimum security support periods. I'd also make it easier for vendors to be able to agree to such things, by promising support on their end for a reasonable amount of time, and preferably, a stable kernel-level abi so that they don't need to do as extensive regression testing when a kernel-level patch needs released.

Android development feels a lot like current web development plans, where things are released, and not a lot of thought is given to backward compatibility and backporting security. Google needs to tighten those reins a bit, either by pushing handset developers forward faster and/or giving reasonable support for older devices themselves.

I largely agree, and it is the same problem Microsoft faced when downstream OEMs put their OS load on their hardware, adding in their own drivers and "features". Even today people like Lenovo get smacked for adding things like Superfish. But the underlying OS has gotten much more reslient. Anyway, that is why, to me, Google seems a bit like Microsoft in the 2003.