Android has frequently been ahead of Apple in terms of features for years at this point. But Apple's overall "ecosystem" is (or was) much more cohesive, so everything felt very Apple, while Android's has (for better or worse) been something of a wild west situation; and iPhone's have excellent cameras. If you go with a flagship Android phone, though, you're now getting an equally good camera (if not better in some cases) and the benefit of Android's more freedom, in relative terms of course.

NA seems to really fixate on the luxury and social significer aspect of having an iphone though. But I think this update is finally ending that for some people. I have many friends who were diehard iPhone users that are now thinking of moving to Android. There's also a growing sense that new gens of most phones are making only marginal advances. Keeping a phone for 3 or more years is much more common and some mid-tier phones are now getting long security and update commitments.

Dunno man, I’ve used Android recently and it’s still as bafflingly confusing and crappy as I remember it being.

Definitely an “to each their own” kind of situation.

Fair if you haven't looking at it in a while but they have largely been on par for a decade.

The Apple hardware is more consistently premium of course but if you compare the Samsung Galaxy whatever with the iphone they have been pretty close for a while. The entire industry has been in incremental innovation for a long time.