Just heard on the German Heise Computer-News (https://www.heise.de/news/TikTok-schnappt-sich-von-iPhone-Nutzern-regelmaessig-die-Zwischenablage-4796222.html):
Apple has implemented a new security system on iOS 14 that revealed that the iOS app Tik-Tok copies the contents of the clipboard near continuously.
Other apps showing similar behavior are the “Wall Street Journal”, Starbucks, AccuWeather, Fox News, New York Times, and Overstock.
That is scary.
Does Android have similar checks?
Wow - chrome was doing that too on my iPad. Kept coming up - thought it was a bug!
Not until the recent Android 10. Most devices are not using it yet. I think that iOS14 hardened its clipboard because Android did it first. Probably they quietly noticed the abuse and fixed. But they can’t fix the OS in older phones. Only remove apps from the store. Interestingly, we know that the “Google News” app does it in iOS.
Apple could absolutely patch old iOS versions
My old iPad mini still gets updates for iOS 12
As Android is free and customizable, vendors applied their sauce to their systems. So older versions depended of the vendor updating its flavor or Google could break something. Newer versions of Android can have patching now at the system core level, since V8, Oreo. From 7 and below they still depend on the good will of the vendor.
Like anything there are pros and cons to both Apples and Googles approaches to their mobile platforms
