Are you an iPhone user who lives happily in the world of Apple until some filthy Android user gets added to the group chat and messes everything up? Well, sorry to hit you with the cold water, but its not the loser with an Android's problem, its yours. Let's get started
# Apple
# User experience
Let's talk about Apple's software first. My biggest gripe about it is the lack of personalization. No custom launchers; the live wallpapers are limiting; your apps are forced into a grid. It took them 14 or 15 generations to add widgets and icon theming. Don't even start on MacOS: horrible task management; all the important backend stuff is covered over for the sake of good-looking software that anyone can use. For most people, this is just fine and dandy; however, anyone who wants a better workflow or more customization is out of luck.
# They spy on you (yeah)
Apple prevents people from modifying iOS or even seeing what code is really being run on their phone. This is called "closed source" software; you can't see what the code is really doing or modify it. While this is the business method of most companies, it focuses more on making the most money out of you than on providing a good experience. No bueno. It is simply capitalizing on people who don't understand the importance of open source software. Evil corporation spies on you for money. Shocker, I know.
You don't have much internet privacy when you use Apple products. Not that you likely care, but your personal information is floating around every major company all the time. To an extent, it is nearly impossible to prevent this, but the point where Apple always knows where you are and stores this information for advertising is not cool. To be fair, Apple has better out-of-the-box privacy terms than its competitors, but the fact that it is closed source means that you can't do much about your privacy. Regardless, most people don't care about this fact because it takes too many sacrifices to protect your online privacy. You can't just press one button and solve everything, no matter what NordVPN told you. How does Apple get away with this? Well, it's a simple fact that their main market is just unaware or doesn't care. Primarily, they market iPhones to teenage white girls as a fashion product and necessity, while they either don't realize or look over Apple's holes in their policy and products.
# Pricing
Apple's prices are high for what you're getting, especially in the laptop end. If you don't have a high enough budget, you will be shamed by society when you buy an Android or Windows laptop.
Repairs are a nightmare. Your device is a fashion piece, according to Apple. Want it to work again? Just buy a new one. Any repairer has to pay a large sum to Apple in order to use real Apple parts and become an official service. This results in high repair prices, at which point you might as well throw it away and get the latest release for social validation.
# Green and blue bubbles
Here we go. This is the scummiest (ok, maybe a bit harsh) part of Apple's ecosystem. Since they own the majority of the smartphone market share (meaning that most people have an iPhone), they decided to make their own protocol called iMessage. That is what lets you react to messages, share crisp videos, and send pool games at 3 AM to random people in your contacts. Ok cool. Here's the catch: They made it exclusive. Android "losers" show up as sad green bubbles that don't get read receipts, reactions, or anything. Don't even try to send a picture or video. Guess whose fault this is? Android's? NOPE. APPLE'S. They made it so popular that people just think that Android is simply bad for not keeping up, when in reality Apple just wants more money. Their iMessage protocol is also closed source, just like everything else, which means that other phone manufacturers can't implement it, no matter how much they want to. There is one alternative, RCS; however, different phone manufacturers have different methods of implementing it, so it doesn't work very well across devices. That means that hey, guess what Apple can do now? Put RCS in iPhones and solve the entire problem. So what does Apple do? They pretty much say that they don't care and will not implement fixes for their communication issue. Google literally even made a website to try to shame Apple into folding. The only shared communication method is over 20 years old: SMS. It literally stands for Short Message Service. They weren't trying to send images or videos 20 years ago, that's why any videos sent look like they were taken on a microwave from the 20th century. Finally, the nail in the coffin is security. SMS is extremely exploitable and insecure. No messages are encrypted, meaning that if they are intercepted, they can be read by anyone. Planning to commit murder or send your Netflix password to a friend? Please don't use SMS. Despite all of these issues that Apple is directly or indirectly responsible for, they still refuse to do anything. The only solutions can be found in third-party apps that people have to install manually, namely Signal, which is the best solution currently.
For more information, check out this YouTube video that explains it more in depth.
# Charging
Charging is a similar case to messaging. Apple develops its own charging cable: Lightning. Meanwhile, other phone manufacturers agree on a standard: USB-C. USB-C charges faster and transfers data faster than Lightning. Does Apple care? Nah. As it turns out, this issue causes so much trouble that the actual European Parliament is requiring Apple to use USB-C in their wired products by 2024. Instead of adding USB-C ports to iPhones, which is possible, it seems that Apple may instead remove the port altogether and go with wireless charging only. They're just too cool for everyone else.
# Not all bad
Finally, before talking a bit about Androids, I want to say that Apple isn't really that bad of a company. They actually have the lowest carbon footprint out of all the tech giants. They have very premium hardware. Their cameras are better than the competitors' in many places. iPhones are very easy to use and allow you to download and use basic services without having a chronic migraine or technical knowledge. iOS and MacOS have very smooth and pleasing design choices too. The simple fact is that Apple got greedy, and the above is what happened.
# Android
Why are Androids unjustly hated? Simple. Apple just got so big and sells very polished, almost fashion piece products that anything else is considered second-rate by unaware iPhoners. Also, there's the fact that Apple sells high-end "flagship" phones, which many people can't afford. In turn, other manufacturers capitalize more on the budget phone market, which Apple hardly competes with. That's why androids are generally considered to be of lower quality.
What is so much better about Android? For one, they are based on an open source structure. While Google (the creator of Android) is also a scummy company, more so than Apple, they did actually make Android open source to compete with Apple because it was their only option. This means that you can have all the customizations you want, and you have to wait less for bugfixes because users like you can actually browse through the code and fix it and find vulnerabilities. I've heard it said that "iPhones don't get viruses!" No, they do; however, they do get less. Androids are just as safe if you know how to not download viruses (pretty easy). Regardless, open source means lots of cool customization features. There are countless more useful apps on Android's app store. Do you want your homescreen to be organized? Customize it however you want. Just look at some of these beautiful homescreens:
Simply not possible on iOS.
Also, check out the Samsung S22 Ultra and Google Pixel 7. There are so many modern phones with great, unique designs and software and more advanced features than iPhones.
# Conclusion
Anyways, all of this rambling goes to show that both phones are comparable and better for some than others. In short, no phone is better in a global sense. Those who want a simplified, expensive, basic white girl, clean looking, unified ecosystem, and dummy-proof phone should go with Apple. If you want to spare some cash or go for the ultra, and you like the customization and more advanced features, both technologically and just in general (e.g., better zoom, AI cropping, faster fingerprint), and a fluid OS, and you don't care about making a fashion statement or being bullied by your friends for not having an iPhone, then go with Android.
Rant. Over.