I do agree that they are very close; maybe I’m an Apple apologist, but I put ICEBlocker in the same class as Tea. They both claimed to be to protect their target audience; Tea was exposed as having been Vibe Coded by someone who knew SFA about user data security and ICEBlocker had a huge honeypot of user data that the government would love to subpoena.

I’m surprised it isn’t more.

Pixels are the reference platform for a lot of open-source phone operating systems. A disproportionate number of people who purchased Pixels are the type of person who did believe Googles motto of “Don’t be Evil”, even after Google abandoned the motto.

Now that Google is inarguably Evil (not Musk Evil, but definitely more Evil than Apple), these people are searching for solutions. They are gun-shy and are not likely to get an Evil iPhone, have a large investment in the Android ecosystem so are unlikely to pivot to Linux Phone, and the niche Android variants are more likely to be assassinated by Google.

GrapheneOS is the obvious choice. I’m surprised it isn’t a higher percentage.

Managers aren’t being held accountable for their management decisions either.

“Oh, I sacked our entire workforce and sold all the company assets, so the figures will look amazing this month.”

<one month later>

“Oh, the figures are down this month, a golden handshake!? Thank you very much.”