[msy]

iPhones, particularly with the advanced security/hardening turned on are light years in front of Android devices for protection against advanced/sophisticated actors. Which is why VIPs use iPhones.

Apple responded to Pegasus with Lockdown Mode, which is probably the most hardcore security modality that's ever shipped in mass produced consumer hardware.

[matheusmoreira]

Apparently Cellebrite is able to crack open iPhones but not phones running GrapheneOS. There's no doubt iPhones are reasonably secure but I wouldn't say they have "the most hardcore security".

[xethos]

This cuts both ways - ADP requires changing some settings on-device, and (in some cases I've heard) calling Apple to disable. So it is baked in, but it's hardly easy to enable and disable

GrapheneOS (which, FWIW, I do trust at least as much as ADP) has a web-installer IIRC, making it similarly easy to enable, but a little harder to disable for normal users. Moreover, it's not built-in to the Pixel. It's entirely third-party, and did not ship on mass-market hardware

Being an option on the default OS, with OEM support, can make all the difference sometimes

[deaux]

People have been getting zero-click hacked on iPhones by Israeli malware now also in use by ICE, even recently. I don't blame Apple too much given what they're up against, but zero-clicks are the worst thing possible.

[0] https://www.securityweek.com/paragon-graphite-spyware-linked...

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/eff-statement-ice-use-...

[jen20]

If your threat model is a nation state instead of the assholes on a push bike that steals your phone out your hand, you already have other problems.

[PlatoIsADisease]

Empirical evidence doesn't support this. IIRC the bounty for an Android exploit is 500k more than an iphone... Let alone the number of people killed from an Android exploit is... 0? Iphone is at least at 1... Let alone the 1000 other VIPs.

Induction says, its dangerous to have an iphone. There is no deduction based answer here that has been validated by experiment.