This question is silly. The Pixel or any top-end Samsung is equivalent or better than the iPhone in hardware. The Android and iOS user interfaces are similar enough that it's mostly personal preference and familiarity.
> Pixel 6 and later phones will get updates for at least 5 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US.
On top of that, it depends on where you bought the device
> If you bought your device elsewhere, updates can take longer
Apple users get updates regardless of whether you bought the device from an Apple Store.
And if you can't tell the difference, you certainly won't budget resources towards making Apple-quality products. Then you'll spend years wondering why Apple has such ridiculous profit margins before coming to the erroneous conclusion that it must just be everyone else that's wrong.
Apple has huge profit margins because their software margins are literally larger than their hardware ones. If you're familiar with the history of Microsoft/Google products, that should be a big flashing light telling you to leave ASAP.
The poster clearly believes what they are saying, despite other commenters pointing out the counter-evidence for the statement.
So GP is right: many people simply can't tell the difference, despite Apple's best efforts.
Whereas you are talking about how Apple's current customers perceive their devices. And you're absolutely right. Apple sells phones to a lot of people who don't have good taste, and it works hard to persuade them that Apple==tasteful so they don't get confused and wander off.
I'm artistically useless myself, to be clear. I'm not immune to marketing where my lack of taste leaves a preference vacuum.
A short list of the major things that I think set Apple-quality apart: Zero effort towards backward-compatibility or longevity, just force users to buy new hardware constantly. Actively hostile towards hardware interoperability, just force users to buy adapters. Actively hostile towards independently developed software and interoperability, just steal ideas to incorporate into an apple-owned product or use marketing to convince your users they're superior for being locked into your platform. Don't bother to make software that works for diverse users, just use marketing to convince users that flexibility and functionality are inferior to whatever the Cupertino designers decree is the one right way to do things
Apple isn't a technology company, they're a fashion company. They can sell an iPhone for huge premiums for the same reason that Chanel can sell a purse for $10,000. It's not a product-quality question, it's a brand-quality question.
This can't be taken seriously as a comment given that iPhones are typically supported with software upgrades for twice as long as Android phones.
Is that why you can install iOS 16 (the most recent version) on an iPhone 8 from 2017?
Edit: clarity
That has still not changed with the latest Android updates. Yes the home screen might look "similar" but once you get past that first surface layer interaction, to people like her the Android system and UX design language are a mishmash of incoherent ideas and visions whereas on an Apple device things work as she would intuitively expect consistently regardless of the app she's using or what she's trying to do with her phone.
Please check out what the word "lie" means and until then stop using the word.
Hint: The post you replied to did not claim something of which they know that it's not true.
My mother is 84, she has an android phone that after 3 years still cannot manage to do anything other than make and answer calls. She hates it. Six months ago I gave her my old iPad Pro. Spent an hour showing her the basics and now she zooms with her Bible study group, manages her email, browses the internet, FaceTimes her grandkids, watches streaming, listens to music. She loves it. She asked me recently if iPhones were similarly easy to use, a let her use an old 8 we had. She’s getting an iPhone in a couple months once her phone plan is due for an upgrade.
What I think people need to realize, despite the power in smartphones nowadays, they are consumer level devices and with a consumer level device, you need to make it usable for the lowest common denominator users (like my mom). This is where android fails as compared to iOS IMO. A walled garden sometimes is a good thing.