Android More Secure Than iPhone, Says Google's Eric Schmidt

Google's Eric Schmidt was involved in a Q&A at the Gartner Symposium, a time during which he didn't mince words when asked about Android's security. Said Schmidt in response to the question, "Not secure? It's more secure than the iPhone," not surprisingly kicking off a series of both agreements and hasty dissension. Not deterred, Schmidt went on to explain his reasoning.

During the Q&A session, Schmidt was question by David Willis, an analyst with Gartner, who said: "If you polled many people in this audience they would say Google Android is not their principal platform ... When you say Android, people say, wait a minute, Android is not secure." Such prompted Schmidt's response that Android is more secure than the iPhone.

According to the Google head, claims of fragmentation is a non-argument due to having vendors keeping the Android stores compatible, something he says is a "great breakthrough for Android." He went on to illustrate this with Unix, saying that the big issue with such was that users did not "have an app store" to keep them unified, so to speak.

He also talked of other matters, saying that Android has in excess of a billion users and has been available for a fair bit of time, both of which ensures that it is subjected to a lot of security testing for real-world usage. He also claims that eventually a point will come when security is something looked at per app, dependent on the user. At the end of it all, he wrapped it up neatly and said: "Android is very secure."

SOURCE: ZDNet