Ceitical new update is delayed.
Getty Images
Updated Oct. 31, with a new report claiming Android is more secure than iPhone.
Apple’s next iPhone update is a game-changer. Google and Samsung have been accelerating Android security and privacy updates to narrow the gap between the ecosystems. But Apple’s iOS 26 sets iPhone apart again. The bad news is this is suddenly delayed and 1.5 billion iPhone users need to wait longer.
Just as Samsung — Apple’s main competitor in the flagship stakes — struggles to roll out updates across its vast user base, Apple which has mastered the art of updating everyone, everywhere, all at once, now make this even easier.
Apple is replacing the now defunct “Rapid Security Responses” with a new Background Security upgrade that runs silently in the background, updating iPhones silently without interrupting users. In this spyware era, this is exactly what’s needed.
“Apple is refining how iPhone users stay protected between major iOS updates,” says MacRumors. “Previously, you had to download Rapid Security Responses through the Settings app just like a normal iOS update.” iOS 26.1 makes the process seamless.
We had expected iOS 26.1 before the end of October, following the pattern of recent years for the first major update to a new version of iOS. But it’s delayed. “Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1,” MacRumors says, “which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible iPhones on Monday, November 3 or Tuesday, November 4.”
On the Android side, only Pixel comes anywhere close to Apple’s seamless update and upgrade programs. Just as iOS 26 rolled out efficiently, iOS 26.1 will do the same. Samsung needs to resolve this as Pixel picks up pace, or it risks falling further behind.
It’s not all good news for iOS 26 on the spyware front. iVerify warns that the new version of iOS wipes critical logs whenever an iPhone is rebooted, making persistent tracking of sophisticated spyware attacks such as Pegasus near impossible.
“It could hardly come at a worse time,” iVerify says. “Spyware attacks have been a constant in the news and recent headlines show that high-power executives and celebrities, not just civil society, are being targeted.”
Conversely, Apple’s new background updates could not come at a better time for exactly that same reason. Install the update as soon as it’s released.
Meanwhile, a new post from Google perfectly illustrates the way in which security has now become a critical battleground between iPhone and Android. While iPhone might be considered the more secure of the two, “Android provides the most effective protection to keep you safe from mobile scams,” Google says.
The threat landscape is worsening. “In the last 12 months,” Google warns, “fraudsters have used advanced AI tools to create more convincing schemes, resulting in over $400 billion in stolen funds globally.” With its own AI advances, Android now protects users “from over 10 billion suspected malicious calls and messages every month.”
This is timely, because with iOS 26 Apple has materially stiffened its own defenses against “malicious calls and messages.” Screening unknown calls with iPhone answering on your behalf, and filtering unknown spam and scam messages and blocking replies and links. These are all major advances for iPhone, not yet in the data.
Google also says it “continuously performs safety checks to maintain the integrity of the RCS service. In the past month alone, this ongoing process blocked over 100 million suspicious numbers from using RCS, stopping potential scams before they could even be sent.” All well and good. But the critical issue for both iPhone and Android users is that RCS messages are still not fully encrypted cross-platform.
That needs fixing — but no word when in all these iOS 26 updates it might come.
