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IPhone apps do not have access to email or text messages or the data in any other app except through a very well defined API

That's not correct. iPhone apps have access to a far larger amount of data than you might expect. For instance they can all read the "keyboard cache" which records all keystrokes save for passwords. This iPhone Privacy study may prove interesting.

You don't need to audit Android to know it sends a lot of data back to Google. You just need to use it.

• You need a Google account to use the phone. Every search you do with Google is logged-in and confirmed to be you. On the other hand, general browsing (including bookmarks and web history) is not logged to Google. You can check here if you like.
• Your entire phonebook has to go into Google Contacts - or you don't get a phonebook. As this is a fancy smartphone, it's not just useful to have name and number, but also email addresses, social media login names and even postal address (e.g. for driving directions on Google Maps)
• Every search you do with the multi-purpose search bar is sent to Google regularly as you type it - assuming, of course, that you don't turn off the Google Search provider, which you can do but it would make the search bar significantly less useful.
• Google want you to use Buzz, and they'd ideally like you to give away your location when you do Buzz, even if what you're Buzzing is irrelevant to your location.
• Google has a fantastic location-finding-without-GPS algorithm, which works by having millions of samples of "I was on this cell tower / wifi router and this is my GPS location". It used to be quid-pro-quo, where you couldn't get this estimated location for yourself without committing to uploading your location to Google for each cell tower / wifi router you encounter. However, now it's possible to check a box that says "use the location DB, but don't contribute to it".
• Speaking of location, who the fuck uses Google Latitude? A tool for broadcasting to your "friends" where you are and when?
• Even if you're not so mad as to use Latitude, you're still giving away your location to Google whenever you hit "My Location" - it shows you your location and it gets the map tiles to show from Google by asking for them with your logged-in identity. So Google knows roughly where you are whenever you look up your own location.
• This happens constantly if you use Google Maps with Navigation to get your free sat nav.
• Don't forget that Google reads all your mail if you use GMail. But there's also another regular email app on the phone, which never sends data to Google. Check for yourself.

On the bright side, all this data you have on your phone isn't available to all - Android is far more effectively sandboxed than the iPhone. Apps have to get the user to agree up front what access they're allowed to private data and phone features. For example, there are several games I wanted to install, but when I saw they wanted permission to get at my private phone data, I said "fuck that" and refused to install them.

If the user says "yes" to an app's permissions, the apps can't wangle any extra permissions. The developers need to release a new version begging for more permissions, and the user again gets the choice to say "yes" or "no". If they say "no", they still keep the old version, so you can't force them to say "yes".

Apps can't access other apps data, unless those other apps let them. So what Google collects on you is only available to Google, not any other Tom, Dick or Harry who writes an app, like on the iPhone.

Google is always looking to offer Faustian pacts - you give us an insight into aspects of your life, and we'll make your life better. And, like Steve Jobs' walled garden appstore, it's a take-it-or-leave-it approach.

Personally, I use my Android phone every day and love it, but that's because I already got hooked on Google Search and GMail years ago. Google already own me privacy. Uploading to their hivemind isn't so bad. But you don't have to if you don't want to.

iPhone apps can definitely NOT poke around other apps' data, nor the system.

Yes, they can! http://seriot.ch/resources/talks_papers/iPhonePrivacy.pdf

You can download many Apple Keynotes as .mov files, including MWSF'05 on http://seriot.ch/AppleKeynotes/ Enjoy!

croftbox.com original scans are mirrored on http://seriot.ch/GLAT.

Another eyeball featuring all known photos of Gates estate is here.

PDF copy here, now 76 Ko and clickable links, ZH, Switzerland.

PDF copy here, 204 Ko, ZH, Switzerland.