I can only speculate at the root cause here, but fragmentation of the ecosystem probably plays a large role.
Feel is highly subjective and de gustibus non est disputandum; to me, iOS clearly has a much stronger design aesthetic (not just visual, but especially there), but also a much less appealing one, even after it abandoned it's older, all-in skeumorphism aesthetic to follow the trend (which Apple did not lead) of cleaner, flatter design.
Even though you can't get the simple Google phones any more, any Android device still has the "feature" that you can use it as a general purpose computer and not something that you are only permitted to use insofar as the manufacturer approves.
It's an OS ruined by lack of developer interest which was caused by no small amount of mistakes from Microsoft. But it has (had) a very solid foundation.
Regarding software, it's the iPhone that looks like a phone from last decade. Bezelless screens are the future, and they appeared on Android devices much before the iPhone X