It's not that easy on Android either. Rooting usually requires a factory reset and several apps (e.g. banking) will not work if they detect the system is rooted.
edit: Also, in some cases you lose warranty.
edit: Also, in some cases you lose warranty.
There are a number of scary warnings to click through but that's it. Not great for security but the official distribution is good enough that it's not a problem outside a few select countries where doing business is hard.
On Android, with Android 12, we can now have apps on neostore (fdroid frontend) auto update. There is no good reason to defend apple here. You as a user are always free to not install third party app stores.
...I do right now. So that isn't a fact. It's a myth.