The thing holding me back from iPhone is the inability to buy content from non-apple sources.
You can do this with a free account, just with some restrictions on what types of API you can use.
That's the issue. You can't.
Can I buy an audiobook on the Audible app? No.
Can I buy a book/movie/show/etc on any Google Play app? No.
Am I willing to buy on websites or using a laptop or different advice instead of my phone because Apple? No.
Everyone bemoans the “walled garden” and not being able to buy apps anywhere except for the App Store. Now here is a case where you can buy content using the “open web” and that’s not good enough?
Having to explain to my mother that the chromecast she got for christmas would only work on her phone if she first went to a website to buy a movie we wanted to watch and then opened the app to play, I feel like I am living in a bizarre parody.
I don't want to deal with that needless hoop jumping and my mother just won't do it.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/14323438/apple-audible-ex...
But as far as your mom being confused. Isn’t confusing enough to use a Chromecast that requires a phone with a TV instead of using a remote?
I can’t possibly see how it would be a better user experience to have to use a phone to control a TV than to be able to use native apps and a remote.
If you are going to stay in the Android ecosystem, at least get something like the Nvidia Shield.
One of the reasons I can stomach it is that while Apple is an enclosed garden they tend to use rather standard formats on things so you usually have a way of getting your data out should you leave the garden.
I find that more problematic with the Microsoft world which uses much more MS specific formats which are often binary or hellishly complex to decipher or reverse engineer.