Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck once said, «Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.» Apple, having had teams developing operating systems since the 1980s, has had ample time to learn from past mistakes. When the iOS team came into the picture, they had the advantage of learning from the errors of previous groups, which greatly influenced the development of a secure operating system. With each subsequent release, iOS continues to enhance its security measures.

In fact, iOS has become so secure that it is virtually impossible to create antivirus software specifically designed for the platform. A report by Malwarebytes from a couple of years ago noted a significant increase in macOS malware but stated, «On the iOS side, malware exists, but there’s no way to scan for it.» The report further explained that the majority of iOS malware is associated with nation-state efforts rather than posing a threat to the average user.

Even when malware developers or researchers manage to create iOS malware, it tends to have significant limitations. For example, the checkm8 technique discovered in 2019 enables a partial jailbreak of older iPhones from the iPhone 4s to the iPhone X. However, implementing checkm8 requires physical access to the phone, which must be connected to a desktop computer. Another technique called NoReboot allows malware to persist through an iPhone reboot, but it achieves this by deceiving the user into believing the phone has rebooted when it hasn’t.

There is no need to search for a collection of iOS antivirus products because it simply doesn’t exist. If you exclusively use iOS (and iPadOS) devices, you generally do not require antivirus software. However, it is still advisable to use an iPhone VPN in certain moments.