Pixel vs iPhone becomes more interesting
Although the warnings of updating iphones and androids are not new, there is something different this time. We haven’t seen this before. He has enormous implications for the Duopole of Smartphones (put Huawei aside given his unique safety problems), and could change the situation for pixel owners as the Android ecosystem changes.
At the beginning of this month, Google Published its security update in February with a warning that “CVE-2024-53104 could be under a limited and targeted exploitation”. Exactly a week later, Apple has published its own security update, with a warning that the CVE-2025-24200 “could have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.
Google has published few details of the nature of Android’s vulnerability, although writing has made it clear that this is a video management problem that can trigger memory instability during the Management of unexpected size executives. Android safety developer Grave Filled the gaps: “It is probably one of the USB buckets operated by medical-Legal data extraction tools.”
And now Apple, who was more to come, describing his own vulnerability as “a physical attack [that] Can deactivate the limited USB mode on a locked device. ” As CalculationR explains this time, this limited mode “prevents USB accessories from creating a data connection if the device has been locked for more than an hour. This feature is designed to block forensic software like Graykey and Celbrite (commonly used by the police) of the data extraction of locked iOS. »»
We know that medico-legal exploitation has become embarking on smartphones in the two ecosystems. You will remember several days zero-day of Android and fury when Apple iPhones have proven to hide a new defense mechanism against such extraction tools, “mysteriously“When removed from storage lockers.
In a few days after Google’s warning, its update was made available to owners of pixels to correct and secure their devices. Apple’s own opinion was published in parallel with its software update – the usual everyone, everywhere. Not if other Android OEM however. They must adapt the update of their own operating system, then deploy it. As I have already pointed out, Samsung – the biggest OEM in Android from a distance – has not included this zero day in its February security bulletin and has not yet confirmed when the fix will take place.
And so this month was a watershed of the smartphone duopoly. Apple and Google, the only two manufacturers to control their software and end -to -end hardware, immediately controlled the story and secured their phones. But only these two.
When the Android update in February was published, I commented that it had probably put Pixel next to other devices in a way that might be impossible to catch. Apple releasing an update on the similar theme in the same month has strengthened this. In the state that things, owners of iphones and pixels were quickly and uniformly protected.
Pixel owners were the first to Android 15 and its main safety and confidentiality features, and are now the first to Android 16. Samsung owners have not yet received Android 15 upgrade, Bar The New Galaxy S25 and a limited beta S24 version. It seems that the wider Android project needs a rethinking about how it works in the longer term. With flagship products now at the price of the fork from $ 1,000 to $ 2000, weeks of waiting, or even months for updates, do not seem viable.
