Certainly, the vast majority of people in rich countries can afford to care more about fashion (including bubble color) than functionality, and this is reflected in their smartphone purchases. The frustration you see in these comments comes from technologists like the OP thinking the same way and repeatedly running into leopard ate my face moments.
> Certainly, the vast majority of people in rich countries can afford to care more about fashion (including bubble color) than functionality,
I've been an iOS and Android developer—as in, paid to do it. Was an Android phone user before doing any mobile dev. Finally got my hands on IIRC a 3rd-generation Surface at work a few years back, as a test device.
Having extensive experience with the competition, I now choose Apple phones and tablets for a few reasons, functionality very much among them.
I don't doubt your experience, but I would expect you to be an outlier and that more technologists would prefer a device they can program with the same APIs as the manufacturer without any gatekeeping and non-buggy web access most of all. Having better photo sharing and phone call capabilities, less device restarts, notification filtering, the ability to caption audio for times when having the speaker on is inconvenient or not loud enough, and supporting restricted guest accounts are also features that most people who don't worry as much about fashion would not want to give up.
> I would expect you to be an outlier and that more technologists would prefer a device they can program with the same APIs as the manufacturer without any gatekeeping and non-buggy web access most of all.
I doubt most "technologists" care about writing code for their phone to begin with, and I don't know what you mean by "non-buggy web access". That doesn't mean I think most "technologists" would pick Apple (I really don't know) but I don't think I'm the outlier here, preferences-wise, even if I am on which platform I choose.
> Having better photo sharing and phone call capabilities, less device restarts
Photo sharing's never been a problem—what am I missing? I don't talk on the phone much so maybe that's actually terrible (it seems entirely fine?) and I just don't know it. Device restarts? How often do you think I restart my iOS devices?
> the ability to caption audio for times when having the speaker on is inconvenient or not loud enough
That is cool. Not something I'd use personally, but it's cool.
> supporting restricted guest accounts are also features that
Account management is my biggest complaint about I-devices. Mostly the iPad—I don't really care if iPhones continue to have only two modes (full, and PIN-restricted "screen time" mode—which I don't use anyway, so I wouldn't mind if that disappeared, really) but true multi-account would be great on the iPad.
> most people who don't worry as much about fashion would not want to give up.
> I doubt most "technologists" care about writing code for their phone to begin with
I program my computing devices constantly, and with my phone being a computing device I have near me almost all the time, I naturally program that as well.
> I don't know what you mean by "non-buggy web access".
Webkit is extremely buggy and the only supported way to access the web on iOS. On other platforms, if one engine is buggy, I can use another.
> Photo sharing's never been a problem—what am I missing?
Uploading photos to your server in the background.
> I don't talk on the phone much so maybe that's actually terrible
You can't route calls through other services, you can't record calls (which the first makes trivially possible), you can't have your phone answer the call for you and show you a realtime transcription or save the transcription for later viewing, you can't have the phone wait on hold for you, etc. The iPhone is extremely limited as a phone.
> Device restarts? How often do you think I restart my iOS devices?
Every single time you need to update a system app.
