Since announcing our Unlimited Mobile Backup plan for $4.99/year last month, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of new mobile users backup tons of their photos and videos. With a wealth of data about iOS and Android user preferences on our hands, we were able to compare both groups to discover which platform backs up more photos and videos, and which platform is more likely to choose our private key encryption to protect their data.
Looking at a small fraction of our mobile user base (20K iOS and 20K Android), we set out to discover who cares more about privacy, Android or iOS users. The results are fascinating.
Picture This
So who worries more about backing up their selfies? By no small degree, iOS users backed up more photos to the cloud than Android:
- Android: 4,106,868 Photos
- iOS: 6,149,578 Photos
That’s over 10 million photos that are not only secured with 256-bit AES encryption but accessible from any device the user has linked to their IDrive account. iOS users backed up an average of 307 photos, where Android’s average was 205 per user.
Lights, Camera, Backup!
In addition, Apple folks backed up more videos than Android consumers:
- Android: 121,578 Videos
- iOS: 151,479 Videos
But what do the numbers say about user preference regarding privacy?
Privacy in the Palm of Your Hand (If You Want It)
When it comes to privacy concerns, our study shows there’s a pretty big difference between users of the world’s two most popular platforms. Namely, one platform was way more likely to choose a private key to encrypt their data.
Private key is the best way to keep your cloud data safe. You get to choose a unique key-phrase that encrypts your files, and that key is kept off of our servers, so no one but you can ever unlock your data.
We found that iOS users are much more likely to choose our private key encryption than Android, strongly suggesting that Apple users care more about privacy:
- Total # of Android users surveyed: 20K
- Private key users: 460
- Total # of iOS users surveyed: 20K
- Private key users: 632
Whatever factors might explain why iOS users are more prone to protecting their data, the conclusion is simple: People should be more aware about how to protect their data no matter what platform they use.
We’re living in a post-leaks era in which our photos, videos, and business documents are at risk if not protected. Since they are the backbone of our lives, we should treat them as such by securing them in the cloud with encryption that can’t be broken.
