People buy iPhone because they're consistent, polished, and just work. I love my Pixel, but glitches pop up more often than they should for a $1k phone. I don't think I'd ever return to Apple, but sometimes the temptation shows up when they get a feature (admittedly late) but the implementation and function just plain works.
Security on Android, as an OS, is arguably better. However in practice it's very manufacturer-dependent. If they didn't butcher the OS, and actually rolled updates without carriers getting in the way, it wouldn't be a contest at all.
" If they didn’t butcher the OS, and actually rolled updates without carriers getting in the way, it wouldn’t be a contest at all." but they did though.
Unfortunately for Android users, Google researchers discovered known vulnerabilities, or n-days, that essentially equated to zero-days for Android due to a lack of timely patching issues. The vendor observed that attackers didn't need zero-day exploits to attack the Android ecosystem because in many cases, patches weren't available for known flaws, which were then exploited on unpatched devices.
I'm still surprised people don't just buy the a versions. Nearly all the same features for sub-$500. And the last 2 times (5a and 6a) that they came out, I was offered $150 to trade up. Seeing as one of the ones they accepted for that was destroyed from water damage, it was a good deal. But even full price they're worth it if you like Pixels.
Yeah I think the 'A' versions are quite amazing and really don't get enough credit. For me, the size was the primary factor. I came from a Galaxy Note, so the 7 Pro was just barely smaller. But I liked the idea of a slightly more simplistic interface. Pixel, from a software perspective, felt like the iPhone of androids - it's simple, clean, and should just work. Though I've noticed that my Samsungs with OneUi were more stable with less use errors.