There can ocean in terms of specs between the lowest end phones they sell here vs models they only sell in other countries.
When he sees how much horsepower I have with my Xiaomi mi 9 for 1/3rd of the price, he wants to cry. It makes better photos too. His biggest regret in electronics shopping so far.
That comparison must obviously disregard privacy concerns, but I find it foolish to expect any kind of privacy, on any phone, Apple included. Hence no critical, single point of failure apps there.
So.... if it works fine why do you need to tweak it?
As someone who is moving from android to iphone shortly, I am highly excited to have a device that "just works" and will stay updated. The last thing I want in a phone is to have to manage it. I have my PC for that part of my life.
I've mostly used Android for phones since they do the same general things as iPhones, they work fine out of the box, and stay updated since I only buy phones with good update policies.
The main difference isn't in how well they succeed, but in how they "fail". It's true that current iPhones have added most of the features I found lacking in the past, but there are still a few that have no real workaround. Changing default apps is still limited, browser restrictions are annoying, and there's no easy way I know of to enable system-wide ad blocking.
When a phone "just works" as I want 98% of the time, the difference to me is how able I am to get it working as I want the other 2% of the time. Obviously this is only based on my needs and expectations so I don't expect anyone else to share them.
I just bought a new phone for my partner and she has always used iPhones so that's what I bought for her. She prefers them and that's fine. Only real annoyance there was paying $750 for a phone with a 828x1792 LCD and 64GB storage when I paid $550 for my phone a year ago and it has a 1080x2280 AMOLED display and 128GB storage.
I know "specs don't matter" but it was still surprising. Even with Apple's market cachet and whatnot, I expected the higher price but also expected a bit more parity with a year-old phone. It's no surprise that some buyers are looking toward Chinese and other OEMs.
iOS is definitely not for those who want to highly customize their mobile device. It's kind of like renting a home vs owning one -- you can do light decoration but you can't knock down any walls. There are pros and cons to that. You can't customize as much, but you also skirt some of the responsibilities that come with property ownership. Some people prefer one set of responsibilities and freedoms over the other. Neither one is right for everyone.