This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This is less of a "iPhones are more secure" thing and more "Google play is banned in China" thing.
Apple willingly extinguishes freedom of speech to protect app store profits:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/3/23901205/apple-app-store-government-license-china
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/19/tech/china-apple-whatspp-threads-removal-hnk-intl/index.html
Just going to add to that
Apple removes Hong Kong protest app, Quartz news app following Chinese criticism https://www.techspot.com/news/82284-apple-removes-hong-kong-protest-app-quartz-news.html
Apple’s Compromises in China: 5 Takeaways https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-privacy-censorship.html
Apple limited a crucial AirDrop function in China just weeks before protests https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/apple-limited-a-crucial-airdrop-function-in-china-just-weeks-before-protests.html
Apple has stored the data of thousands of customers on Chinese servers and censored apps https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-data-china-censors-apps-nyt-2021-5?op=1
Apple made secret 5-year $275B deal with Chinese government https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/12/07/apple-made-secret-5-year-275b-deal-with-chinese-government
Sounds like Google's enterprise features have a dependency on Google Play (and presumably GSF) and Android phones in China can't be turned into work phones as a result. Makes a lot of sense.
Any staff in the country using Android handsets, including those from Huawei or Xiaomi, will be provided with an iPhone 15, as a one-time purchase
Fuck off. If you're mandating what device I'm to use for work; you're going to provide said device free of charge, or shut the fuck up when I use whatever I like.
That’s my read of it, or am I misunderstanding something?
Microsoft will purchase for their Android using employees an iPhone 15. The reference to one-time being that employees are only entitled to one, in the event they were to lose or damage it?
In China you don't get to have that opinion.
It's a Google updates issue since they're blocked. Apple isn't but they comply with the Chinese government just as much as they do in the US as does Google. Remember Google is banned because it would not comply with China. How quickly the Americans forget.
Most likely the corporate spyware that Microsoft enables, requires very recent Google services and Apple services to operate. It's pretty standard in the corporate spyware world. Usually just a few months out of date at most.
The Redmond giant
One of my least favorite things in journalism. Idk if it is SEO or what but it's so bizarre.
It's just a writer seeking to vary their language a bit. It's a trick to keep themselves from repeating "Microsoft" quite so many times in a short span, as too much word repetition can cause readers to "tune out".
That's fair enough, but "the X giant" in particular I see so often. It feels like an in-joke amongst journalists or something.
It sucks so bad when people do this in Russian.
Same person monotonously being referred to as "young woman" (not that it has anything to do in the context, just to replace "she" or ""), "", "", "", some other crap instead of refactoring and compressing the text a bit.
It works when there's relevant information.
Nice, no phone means no constant nagging. Thanks MS, always looking out for me.
I know you're joking, but having a seperate phone exclusively for work stuff is actually great, specifically because it makes it easier to entirely seperate yourself from work. At my old job, I was given a work phone and it was the only phone number I used for all my work stuff. When I was at work, I would answer it, and outside of that it was off or on silent in my work bag. If they wanted me to answer outside of work hours, they had to pay me on-call rates. The same thing applied to group chats and other work-related stuff like that, (e.g. emails). It all went to that phone, and unless I was being paid to be contactable outside of work hours, I wouldn't be.
The only exception to that was my manager and a select few people who had my personal number for genuine emergencies, and if they used my personal number to contact me asking me about work, it was entirely at my discretion to respond and would mean I'd get on-call pay.
It also meant I could keep my work and personal accounts/apps/etc. completely seperate. If they asked me to download some random app, I could do it on the work phone without worrying about whether they would be able to access other data on my phone or anything like that. Whenever I needed a phone number for 2FA or whatever, I could use the work number and not worry about where exactly that number would end up or how it might be used. For example, I used my work number to register for a conference, and then for months afterwards I would get calls and texts from sales people. That was still slightly annoying, but it was much better than getting calls on my personal phone.
It also meant that when I left that job, I could just wipe that phone without having to worry about having personal data on there, because I never used it for anything except work stuff.
It does sound like Microsoft is asking their employees to pay for an iPhone which is a bit dodgy in my opinion, but I'd still probably take the opportunity to use it completely for work and keep my personal phone seperate. It's easy enough to get another number, and then when you leave that job you can cancel it and get a new number for the next job, cutting that link entirely.
Free iPhone. Not bad
It says they'll be provided one as a "one time purchase" so I'm thinking it's not free and they have one chance to buy it
That's corporate for "we will deduct it from your paycheck".
China, so definitely not the same worker protections; but where I'm at, that kind of deduction isn't legal.
I'm a senior manager for a company in China, and that isn't legal here either. Pretty sure they'll provide it for free. Even when we are talking about somewhat decently paid employees, that phone easily costs a whole month's salary, potentially more.
Being required such an insane purchase is completely inappropriate... I wonder how old they're allowed to be, this could only be affordable as old and secondhand.
I read it as Microsoft will provide it by purchasing it once.
Maybe just release AND support some decent phones if your own, Macroshit.
Macroshit
It's not necessary to change the name to make fun of them. We've been giggling at the name "Micro Soft" alone for 30 years.
Have you seen Windows 11? I have no faith Microsoft could produce a decent phone OS that would serve users well.
The Microsoft phone was decent, but, yea, their app store was lacking. Shoutout to the Zune, which was pretty good software & hardware from what I can remember.
I really liked the Microsoft phones 12 years ago.
I will forever maintain that on a purely hardware level that the Zune was better than the iPod. iTunes and later the App Store for iPod Touch is what made iPod won. Zune had no apps.
Phone or not, I don't think Microsoft has the ability to listen to their users anymore at all
The opposite of microsoft is Megahard
microsoft is small and can't get hard
But iPhones are made by your own fucking competition, Microsoft.
And Android phones are also made by Microsoft's competitor in many fields.
To me the bigger wtf is why Apple has an App store there, but Android do not.
Android is being used by Microsoft now since Windows Phone didn't really do very well. Their Surface Duo device runs Android. Windows 11 has a "Windows Subsystem for Android" feature... that uses the Amazon Appstore (and is actually getting phased out - the WSA thing, not the Amazon Appstore).
And yeah, I have no idea why the Google Play Store isn't available there, seems like a pretty weird decision. Can you tell I hate geoblocking?
Google can't operate Play Store in China because it closed its Chinese offices in response to China attempting to hack them (and several other corporations) back in 2010 (Operation Aurora).
Apple didn't fall victim to this?
Probably already hacked/complicit.
(edit: see other comment with articles about it)
Oh right.
I don't like apple but due to the heavy nuance of this situation I approve of this action. It would have been better for them to develop and distribute their own methods of secure authentication but I realize a for profit company would never agree to that.
