[GoofballJones]

It’s not the same. These are border guards easily putting spyware on Android phones, since it’s a feature of Android (to load programs). With iOS, you’d have to jailbreak it first, which isn’t a trivial thing to do “while you wait” at the border.

That’s all.

[ubersync]

You don't need to jailbreak if you have an Apple signed App, which the Chinese Govt. can theoretically force Apple to provide.

[arcticbull]

Will you not see it on the launch screen?

I mean, if you wanted a hidden, non-standard launchd type app, you'd have to modify the filesystem, install it, they'd need to create special tooling to do so, and modify the updaters to preserve it across an iOS update, etc. All without anyone at Apple speaking out.

Apple refused to create an unlock tool for the US government that was a one-off, to create spyware for China seems like they last thing they'd do. Could they? I guess. Once detected - and it definitely would be (as this was), or leaked by employees - Apple would get bowled over by buyers and the stock market. It's just not in their interests. Their current business model is selling privacy.

[GoofballJones]

Then we need a story like this article confirming that do this too. So far the evidence points to “no”, but that isn’t enough. The transparency report from Apple needs to report this as well.

[9HZZRfNlpR]

Apple is just gonna remotely ship it to you. You can't do business in China without bending over to government. If they want malware there then there will be one.