After doubling and tripling down on its decision to integrate spyware into iOS, Apple has announced a delay:
Apple provided this statement to Ars and other news organizations today:
Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material [CSAM]. Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains, a delay isn’t good enough. However, the delay grants iOS users more time to plan their migration. I’m happy to say that my migration has gone well. I received my Pixel 4a and flashed it with GrapheneOS. My initial impressions are very good. I’ll post a detailed initial impression after a few more days of usage. With that said, there are a handful of options available to those wishing to flee Apple’s new surveillance obsession.
I opted for a Google-free Android Open Source Project (AOSP) ROM. Android is a mature and widely support mobile operating system. It offers near feature parity with iOS since the two platforms have been copying from each other since their early days (both also copied a lot of the best ideas offered by Palm WebOS). The biggest flaw in Android is Google. Google-free AOSP ROMs such as LineageOS, /e/OS, GrapheneOS, and CalyxOS keep the good features offered by Android while removing the Google taint.
Another option is a mainline Linux phone like the PinePhone or Librem 5. Neither platform is mature enough to meet my current daily needs, but they might be mature enough to meet your daily needs. They’re worth investigating and I hope to eventually migrate from Google-free Android to a mainline Linux phone.
If you’re one of those odd ducks who uses their cellphone solely as a phone, an old-school dumbphone is worth considering. Because of how simple they are, dumbphones offer a limited attack surface (keep in mind that security updates on dumbphones are rare so if a major flaw exists, the only solution may be to buy a different phone) and aren’t capable of store even a faction of the personal information that smartphones can. They’re also dirt cheap and frequently more durable than smartphones. The tradeoff is they don’t offer any means of secure communications. You can’t install Element, Signal, or any other secure messaging application on them. But if you don’t use those, that’s probably not a deal breaker.
My suggestion to iOS users (and every other computing platform user) is to develop a migration plan if you haven’t already. I try to have at least one migration plan at hand for any computing platform I use. For example, when I was using a Mac, I had a migration plan for moving to Linux. It didn’t end up being an urgent need, but when I finally decided to upgrade from my 2012 MacBook Pro and Apple didn’t offer anything acceptable to me, I already had a plan. Now I use Fedora running on a ThinkPad and have a plan to migrate from that if needed.
When I ran iOS I also had a migration plan. My plan was to migrate to a mainline Linux phone. I knew this plan was a gamble because it would be a few years until such devices were mature enough for my daily use. Because of that I kept a list of Google-free AOSP ROMs and phones capable of running them. When Apple announced its surveillance plan, my migration plan to a mainline Linux phone wasn’t yet feasible. I had to bring myself more up to speed on AOSP ROMs and phones, but I was able to migrate away from iOS within a week of Apple’s announcement.
Apple didn’t provide a time frame for when it will introduce spyware to iOS. It could be months or years before Apple introduces it or the company could spring it on users with no warning. If you have a migration plan ready, you can react even if Apple gives no advanced warning. If Apple pushes back its surveillance plan indefinitely, you can continue using iOS (if you still trust Apple, which I don’t) knowing you’re ready to move if needed.