My daughter wants an iphone and regardless of what I say she doesn't care and wants one soon! I know nothing about them (i'm an android guy) I know hackers target apple alot, so can any of you gurus tell me what I need to know about iphones and if there's a better phone, please let me know.
The actual reality is that Android devices are targeted much more than iOS ones, and iOS malware is very rare. For example have a look at the article Report: 97% Of Mobile Malware Is On Android. It's an old article, but I doubt much has changed since it was written. So, in terms of being safe from malware, an iOS phone is actually a much better choice. Having said, that if you only get your Android apps from the Play Store, it is highly unlikely your phone would ever get infected.
It's really comes down to personal preference. I greatly prefer Android to iOS, and if you are buying a phone outright, you can get an Android phone much cheaper than an iPhone. I paid $130 for my Android phone, and it works flawlessly.
Unfortunately there are no cheap iPhones, unlike Android phones for which prices start at less than $100.
Thats looks like quite a nice phone for the price. My phone is a Meizu M2, it's got a 5" Dragontrail (scratch resistant) display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB storage, and a Samsung camera sensor. It is very fast (with no lag usually), and has good battery life. You can buy it at the moment for $115. I'd much rather own it than a $1,000 iPhone.
Make sure she repays you lol. Actual security is pretty solid, I mean it even encrypts by default when you set a lock password. Plus, iCloud can lock stolen devices and turn them into pretty much scrap parts (unless you can manually wipe the internal storage after extraction). I still prefer Android for it's power, flexibility, price, customizability, and features. Once rooted, it is basically like an ARM Linux computer! You get an actual ipfilter firewall, proper HOSTS adblock, Linux-like terminal with many of your favourite commands, etc.
Thats one of the reasons why I bought a nexus. All my friends had an iPhone. They all converted within a year or two. Stick to your guns imo. Especially as others have mentioned, buy the phone outright and a have a moderate plan with a large share of data allowance than an expensive iPhone with cheap plan with far less data allowance. Being off contract and buying android, you essential pay for the phone within a year. But if you had to spent $1000 on an iPhone, people dont usually pay for it upfront. Their plans are expensive just so they can get reasonable data allowance. If their plans are cheap, well they dont get much data.
I believe that an Android phone will be a much better choice, considering you are purchasing the phone outright, and can save a lot of money by buying an Android phone. As I said earlier, which phone is the best, is really a matter of personal preference. But, other than the fact that all her friends have iPhones, there's really no particular advantage in having an iPhone.
Friends huh. Anyways, I forgot to mention that Android devices like the Nexus 6P have the same security features (hardware encryption and remote lock) built-in by default!
Sorry, somehow the word new wasn't posted, because older devices don't fully support those features. But I'm glad you find it awesome as well. If iOS has one remaining thing going for it, then that'll be how hard it is to install apps outside of the App Store. That is usually more secure, but I prefer Android's opt-out by default policy on this (mainly due to censorship).