Apple reportedly pushes back on India’s Sanchar Saathi preinstall demand

Apple has quietly drawn a line in the sand in India. After New Delhi instructed smartphone makers to preload a state developed cyber safety tool called Sanchar Saathi on every new device, the iPhone maker has reportedly told officials it will not ship iPhones with the app preinstalled.

On paper, the government pitch sounds benign.

Sanchar Saathi is promoted as a way to help citizens track lost and stolen phones, block their use on mobile networks, and stop criminals from reusing stolen devices. The recent directive reportedly gives manufacturers around 90 days to comply and make the tool part of the default software bundle on all new phones sold in the country.

According to industry sources, Apple plans to push back, arguing that it does not preload government apps anywhere in the world because doing so could undermine the security and integrity of its tightly controlled iOS ecosystem. The company is expected to tell Indian officials that mandatory state software raises privacy risks, widens the attack surface for hackers, and weakens its long standing promise that users, not governments, decide what runs on their devices.

Indian authorities insist there is nothing sinister about Sanchar Saathi. The telecom minister has described the system as voluntary and democratic, stressing that users can disable it and even remove it from their phones. Yet the same directive asks manufacturers to ship devices with the app already present and to ensure its core functions are not disabled or restricted, a contradiction that fuels skepticism among privacy advocates and ordinary users alike.

That tension is exactly what many Indian smartphone owners are reacting to. Some see the move as another step in a broader pattern of digital control by an increasingly assertive government that critics link with hard line nationalist politics. For them, a state built tracking layer buried deep inside every new phone feels less like consumer protection and more like surveillance infrastructure waiting to be repurposed.

At the same time, Apple is hardly seen as a flawless hero. Commentators are quick to point out that the company has previously agreed to host Chinese iCloud data on local servers under that country’s rules. Supporters of Apple argue that there is an important difference between obeying data localization laws and silently installing government software on every handset, but skeptics still dismiss the stance in India as a convenient public relations moment from a company that bends when huge markets are at stake.

The Sanchar Saathi dispute also puts rivals such as Samsung and Google branded Android partners in an uncomfortable spotlight. If they comply without protest, they risk being viewed as more willing to trade user privacy for regulatory peace. If they resist, they could face delays, market access headaches, or open conflict with a government keen to assert digital sovereignty over one of the world’s largest smartphone markets.

Beyond the immediate standoff, the episode underlines a larger global battle over who ultimately controls the modern smartphone. Governments argue that tighter hooks into devices help fight crime, fraud, and terrorism. Companies and civil society groups warn that once powerful access tools exist, they are almost impossible to confine to narrow purposes. In India, Apple’s reported refusal to preload Sanchar Saathi turns a seemingly technical question into a test case for how far a state can reach into the software running on the phones in people’s pockets.