Comment by dmitrygr
2 years ago
> given that you can do all these things and be secure already on basically any desktop environment
My grandma had her bank account drained by a scammer who walked her through how to install a bank-looking app on her phone because android allows sideloading. I cannot fix my grandma. I can get her an iPhone.
"Oh, but computers...."
No. No scammer will walk her through apt-getting something that will mess with her bank account access in firefox on the ubuntu linux box we left her. Too many variations. Phones are easier targets as there are only two OSs.
Sorry that happened to you. I have worked with a lot of elderly people in the past and it is always a shame when that happens to them. You are right that you can't really "fix" them. Even if you lock down iMessage and prevent sideloading, scammers will still send them to phishing pages in their browsers, or get them to read out a gift card over the phone. These methods are actually way, way more common than getting them to install a malicious sideloaded app. Ultimately I think Apple's anticompetitive tactics had no bearing on your grandmother being scammed.