I don’t think you’re wrong to say Apple have stagnated at all. Their hardware plateaued a while ago leaving Android manufacturers to pick up the slack. And whilst I do think that foldable phones are a little bit ‘stumbling in the dark’ they are at least something interesting.

I do not however think Apple’s ecosystem is their strength or even their hardware. I think it is, as it has always been, their software. I didn’t buy a MacBook because of its looks but because Mac OS Tiger was light years ahead of Windows XP and Vista. The iPad has been the same product for a decade and yet dominates because of its software catalog.

And that brings me to my last point and one often overlooked in the Android/iOS comparison: app parity. I feel sorry for Google that in 2023 there is still no real premium app market on Android. I want to be able to use Pixelmator or Procreate with that S-Pen. I want the manual control of Halide on the Pixel camera. Rolando has been imprisoned on iOS for 15 years and is finally getting a Steam port but nothing to play on that Nothing (2) display.

There are great apps for Android but they always just seem to lack that final bit of polish you find on iOS.