Google Just Made Android More Like iPhone—In 4 Weeks Samsung Will Make It Better

Android is changing as Google closes the gap with the iPhone. For many longtime Android users, these changes will be jarring as their phones become locked for the first time. But for the vast majority, it will help them stay safe. If Google is going to catch up, then Samsung is going to go much further.

Apple doesn’t always get it right, just like this month. backlash against privacy shows too well, but the reality is that iPhone users are still safer and more protected. Android is more open to attack, period. Apple’s defenses come down to control. Strict App Store policies, less flexibility for running apps on devices, stricter privacy rules, hardware and software ownership that allows end-to-end control.

The core differentiator for Android has always been the ability to download apps. This open ecosystem has been the cause of many (though not all) Android security problems. “We’re trying to find a balance” Sundar Pichai says “We believe in choice,” but “it’s like a seat belt in a car: we add protection so you can use it safely.”

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Apple doesn’t believe in allowing users to take risks. There was never any side loading. At least until the EU demanded more flexibility last year. The move that prompted Apple to warn that “sideloading apps on iPhone will put all users at risk, even those who consciously try to protect themselves by only downloading apps through the App Store. Allowing sideloading of apps will lead to an influx of new investment in iPhone attacks, incentivizing attackers to develop tools and expertise to attack the security of iPhone devices on an unprecedented scale.”

Everything is changing. Over the past 12 months, Google has gradually tightened its restrictions. Weeding out low-quality, high-risk Play Store apps, extending Play Protect to all apps regardless of origin, improving the Play Integrity API to treat apps differently than outside of the Play Store, and soon to treat them differently depending on OS version on the phone and more open warnings about risks from side loading.

All of this culminates in Android 15, which now runs on a Pixel near you and will soon be released on Samsung. The update brings all the above improvements into an OS designed with security in mind. It adds protection against insecure connections and real-time threat detection, using artificial intelligence to monitor how an app actually behaves on your phone, flagging risks before any central monitoring detects problems.

All this is a hammer blow to the open side loading of the past. “New restrictions on sideloading apps in Android 15 could signal a shift in the Android ecosystem.” Android Police says, “challenging its historically open nature. These stricter security measures protect regular users from malicious apps, but risk alienating power users, hobby developers, modders and enthusiasts who depend on Android’s flexibility. With the release of Android 15… the response to these changes is quickly becoming apparent.”

While Samsung was frustratingly late to the Android 15 release party, releasing a beta version of One UI 7 just before the holidays, it’s ready for a wider release alongside the launch of the Galaxy S25 a month later. And Samsung has taken a look at Android 15’s security limitations and redoubled its efforts. The Galaxy maker has gone much further, offering an Android that’s as close as possible to Apple’s iPhone offering.

Samsung is already moving down this path, faster than Google. by default the maximum limits are set last year to make sideloading apps more difficult. Now, with the update to Android 15, “to protect against malicious apps from sideloaded apps, One UI 7’s new Secure Install system works in conjunction with Auto-Blocking to send an alert when a user tries to download from an unauthorized source, alerting them to security risks.”

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Equally important, Samsung is also doubling down on its Knox Matrix ecosystem with One UI 7, meaning the more Samsung devices a user owns, the more secure they will be. This not only perfectly replicates the Apple ecosystem, but also makes it it is more difficult to exchange Samsung for Pixels or other Androids without losing benefits. Apple’s walled garden comes to mind.

Make no mistake: this is just the beginning of the merging of Android and iPhone. Just as Apple is opening up default apps and third-party stores, Android and Samsung in particular are moving in the other direction. This is long overdue and for almost all mainstream users it is nothing short of a good thing. Samsung and Apple dominate the global premium smartphone segment, and the battle between them has never been more intense.

I predict that Samsung will continue to lock down its Galaxy devices in 2025 and beyond, one small change after another, making driving without a seat belt even more difficult. And this will extend to AI security on devices and in the cloud, opening up a whole new threat landscape, just as AI-powered cyberattacks become the norm. There is no place for risky mobile phones in this new world. Heavy Android users may not like this, but they will almost certainly have to get used to it.