This comment equates Android with Google phones for some reason. The complaints have nothing to do with Android — side loading is light years ahead of Apple (and third party application stores can finally automatically update applications). Call recording works fine on my friend's Xiaomi 14T (I think) that he bought just a couple of weeks ago, and it works fine on my own device that's on latest Lineage (Android 15). There's lots of choice in UI depending on which vendor you're going with; I'm fine with stock Lineage (i.e. stock Android). There's lots of choice price wise (even the homeless have smartphones these days), while the cheapest iPhone costs about two median monthly salaries here.

Just don't buy anything from Google, they've always screwed something up.

Same- I stick with them out of spite, since I refuse to use a device that doesn't allow replacing the OS or installing your own software ("sideloading")

But they're pretty clearly worse as phones and I'll go to my grave mad about the headphone jack.