The characters on Antigang no longer use iPhones. Cops, bikers and gang members on the show now call and text exclusively on Android phones, mostly Samsung Galaxy devices.
That’s according to La Presse, which reported that the show’s producers swapped out the iPhones because Apple’s rules for showing its products on TV had become too restrictive for a series about crime.
Antigang is a French-language daily drama on Radio-Canada’s ICI Télé that follows police investigators up against street gangs, bikers and the Italian mafia. It’s made for Radio-Canada by the production company Aetios. Earlier on, iPhones were part of the show, and the team followed a simple rule: good guys got an iPhone and bad guys got an Android.
That system got messy as the story went on. La Presse pointed to an investigator character who crossed over to the villains’ side, which raised the question of which phone he should carry.
The bigger problem was Apple’s list of conditions. According to La Presse, even with a licence from Apple, an iPhone on screen can’t be hidden in a case, so the Apple logo has to stay visible. Characters can’t break or damage one, or use one that’s already cracked. A character can’t hold an iPhone while driving, an iPhone can’t be hacked or used for online harassment, and the model shown has to match the time period in any flashback scene.
The rule that hurt most is that an iPhone can’t be tied to illegal or defamatory situations. That’s tough to follow in a show built around organized crime. Apple also treats iMessage, AirTags, FaceTime and the Voice Memos icon as protected brands, so those won’t appear on Antigang either.
With the show shooting quickly to keep up with its daily schedule, Aetios decided to retire the iPhones and replace them with Android phones. La Presse says the decision came from the producers and did not follow a complaint from Apple.
There was no sponsorship deal behind the iPhones, either. The production didn’t get free devices in exchange for showing them, and no money or phones changed hands between Aetios and Apple. Apple only oversaw how its phones were shown. Apple didn’t respond to La Presse‘s questions before publication, and the report doesn’t mention any deal with Samsung.
The switch stands out because about 65% of Canadians use an iPhone, compared with 35% on Android, according to Statcounter figures cited by La Presse. On the Samsung side, we recently covered Samsung’s Galaxy S26 price increase in Canada.
Radio-Canada is also cutting back on brands in general. “We try to avoid showing commercial brands on screen unless there is an agreement tied to that brand integration,” Julie Racine, Radio-Canada’s director of promotion and public relations, told La Presse (translated from French).
Did you notice the missing iPhones on Antigang?
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