Why do people keep repeating this tired and offensive myth? I bought my iphone for the hardware and software capabilities that I judged to be the best for my use cases. And I am not the only one that actually had a non-trite reason, I am sure.
Also, tons of people choose certain companies to buy from because of their status and reputation. That's how most industries work. Some people only buy American made cars, or only Chevy or only Honda. There's nothing wrong with brand loyalty especially when the brand is consistently delivering quality products to it's customers. iPhone isn't an arbitrary status symbol. Apple put years and years of effort into building up the reputation they have.
Having not used Photos on macOS in years beyond ensuring it actually imported my photos, I opened it up and was surprised at the level of analysis it had. It made an album for each city I visited in Mexico. "Puerto Vallarta 2017" and such. Even had a "Furry Friends in Mexico" album that was all the furred beasts I met along the way.
Really well done, and all done locally on my computer.
This is the sort of thing I have no problem voting for with my dollars.
All of those seem like expected features in any OS/phone.
I switched back because of that + Google Assistant's unwillingness to work without Google tracking my location history constantly (assuming that the "off" switch there even actually stops them).