Depending on what functionality you're willing to give up, an Android device can pretty easily be used as a more private option thanks to the latest iteration of Google's privacy settings.

If you're willing to root your device, you can have the best of both the functionality and privacy worlds.

That only applies to motivated and reasonably tech savvy users of course, out of the box iOS is still the better privacy option.

If you can root your device, so can the bad guys.

On iOS it's called jailbreaking. In either case it's been a long time since anyone came up with an exploit that could do it remotely.

No, but Android/Google doesn't go out and advertise themselves as a privacy first company.

I don't feel like being able to decrypt server backups on legal warrant completely destroys their stance of privacy focused.

I mean if they started tracking your behavour and location, and mining it to better sell ads, maybe that would.

My favorite apple deceptive practice: allowing you to think you have disabled Bluetooth, when all you have disabled is Your Own ability to use it. Merchant partners of apple can use it to finely track you.

Does that also apply to UWB?

> Do they even let you disable location tracking any more?

You're confusing iOS with Android. On iOS, every time you get your location, that location is also sent to Apple, and there is no way to disable this. Android's collection of this data is gated by a checkbox that is shown to every user on device setup.

Last time I used android there as no option for disabling location tracking as they had removed it a few major versions prior. Instead you had "enabled" and "kind of disabled, but not really" options

I have used Android devices since 1.0. They have all had the ability to disable location history and the ability to disable Google Location Services (under various names). Apple doesn't even give you the option of not sending GPS locations to Apple. If any app requests your location, Apple gets it too. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056

That’s just not enough for disabling it on Android. I am working with androids even before 1.0, but does this really matter?

> That’s just not enough for disabling it on Android.

Citation needed.

> I am working with androids even before 1.0, but does this really matter?

It matters if I am claiming that there is no point at which GGP's statement was true, which I am. If I am not, GGP could say that the version of Android he used "last time [he] used Android" did not allow him to disable location collection and that it predates my experience with Android's location settings.

Practically speaking there is no privacy in the digital world, unless you're willing to go full Stallman, or abandon modern society and go live in a mountain shack somewhere, and even there you'll have dozens of Starlink satellites overhead pretty soon.

The best you can do if you're technically inclined is to use open source as much as possible (AOSP, postmarketOS, PureOS, etc.), minimize use of untrusted software and services (from all major corporations, no social media, no proprietary software in general), use network-level ad blockers, Tor if you think it helps, VPNs, encrypt everything, etc. And you'd still be tracked and profiled.

If you're not technically savvy, forget about it.

In either case if privacy is really a concern vote to elect politicians that are willing to enact laws that regulate the way companies can use personal data. Though considering both companies and governments benefit from the status quo, I don't foresee things improving in the near future, barring some kind of revolution where the majority wakes up, which is also unlikely. If the Snowden revelations didn't do it, I doubt anything will.

So much for fighting 1984, Apple.