Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller has been known to take to Twitter and email to voice his opinions on rival services and platforms in the past. Today, the Apple executive appears to be taking a jab at Android by tweeting out a link to a recent study from security firm F-Secure that compares security threats on mobile platforms.
Be safe out there: f-secure.com/static/doc/lab…
— Philip Schiller (@pschiller) March 7, 2013
Schiller is noted for his taunts at competition, but he hardly uses the microblogging website, so when he does it seems to have an impact. The last activity on his Twitter account before this dig at Android was on 25 December, wishing everyone a happy Christmas.
The F-Secure report indicates that around 96 new families and variants of Android threats were discovered in the fourth quarter of 2012, which was double the number recorded in the previous quarter and that on the threat side, Android’s share rose to 79% in 2012 compared to 66.7% in 2011, while iOS’ share was just 0.7%. While the report is certainly not the de facto pronouncement of mobile OS security, and is based on a specific methodology, a senior Apple executive citing it to pan competition does raise eyebrows.
The reality of the situation is that if you stick to Google Play, you’d be safe in most of the cases. And if you run 4.2 Jelly Bean, you’d be protected even against malicious apps in third-party stores.
Still, Google’s anti-malware bouncer platform and constant quick clean-ups of Google Play cannot protect you from yourself. Rogueware and spyware apps do exist on third-party app stores, and earlier Android versions might be vulnerable. But then again, that’s the price you pay for your freedom of choice, something that other platforms cannot boast about.
