Despite some recent headlines, iPhones remain safer than Androids given Apple’s tighter restrictions and control of its ecosystem. But Google is catching up — and Samsung is moving even faster to narrow the gap. Now, a new Android upgrade for 2025 could make Androids more like iPhones than ever before — but there’s a twist.
The update news comes from Android Authority, which has dove into the new Android 16 Beta 1 to locate more main points about the “new advanced protection mode feature” that was first discussed last year. This disables app installations from the Out Out Store or Other Pre-Installed Retail Outlets entirely, and disables 2G.
The Advanced Protection Mode is an Android settings mode that works alongside Google’s Advanced Protection Program (APP). This account setting “safeguards users with high visibility and sensitive information from targeted online attacks, [with] new protections automatically added to defend against today’s wide range of threats.”
The app forces the use of a transfer key or security key to sign in to your Google account, flags unsafe downloads, protects internet browsing, and blocks access to your account. In short, it makes Android more secure, a little more like iPhone.
Apple has its own Uber safety mode, which it calls lockdown mode. But while Apple warns that it’s “overly excessive coverage designed for the very few people who can be personally targeted through some of the most complicated virtual threats,” Google is so restrictive.
Unlike the “Max Apple, other people,” the top other people are never targeted through attacks of this nature,” and therefore deserve not to allow lockdown mode, Google says that “other people whose accounts involve particularly valuable files or sensitive data deserve complex complex coverage,” and strongly recommends business leaders to allow the mode, as well as “journalists, activists, and others interested in the election. “
Notice the difference?
Almost no one reading this requires lock mode, it’s at least 1% and Apple warns that anyone who tried that “when lock mode is activated, your device won’t paint like it usually would. To lessen the attack surface that can also potentially be operated through highly targeted mercenary spyware, secure applications, internet sites, and features will be strictly limited for security, and secure reports may not be available at all.
In the past I warned that despite the titles that suggest that the blocking mode is just an additional security parameter, this is not the case. “Unless you are in one of those very delicate roles or have reasons to worry about Point National attacks, you don’t want. ” He will eliminate the attachments, restrict the surfing of the Internet and even shared photo albums.
Google’s APP has more mass appeal — especially to business users, because the risks on Android are greater than the risks on iPhone. This new mode is something of a leveler. Passkey access, restricting account data, and blocking sideloading are all sensible measures. And they’re all areas where iPhones are safer than Androids.
Android 15 is a notable upgrade when it comes to security and privacy, and it looks like Android 16 will bring more of the same. This is very welcome. The other issue here is calling companies, to make sure Android can be blocked. Cue Samsung and its “25 Reasons to Change” for iPhone users. Grades with corporate and device lockouts are at the center of this.
And so while my advice to almost all iPhone users is not to enable Lockdown Mode, my advice to Android users is likely to be that they enable Advanced Protection Mode as and when it’s available — subject to the final small print, of course.
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