I wasn’t talking about benchmarks either. I don’t really think that matters as much on phones. I’ll skip my thoughts on where Android/Pixels shine since you’re asking about Apple/iOS/iPhone.

First one is a bit of a cliche. Privacy. It is better on the iPhone in my opinion. I trust Apple more than I trust Google. It repeatedly asks and reminds you if you want to continue to grant permissions at times. I don’t recall Android asking me this once I set permissions. There are also nuances in app settings panels related to this where if I disable location and an app requires that I re-enable, it directs you to the settings page but often it’s the wrong place and digging for where to re-enable this can be different for each app on Android. For iOS, the settings preferences, though more limited, is much more polish and user friendly.

Most of the time if there is an app that exists on both phones, I find 9 out of 10 times the UX or experience is better on the iPhone version (personal preference). The exception being Google specific apps most of the time. Though rare, I also tend to find that there are weird bugs that occur where some apps crashes on the Android side but works on the iPhone side. It’s rare the reverse is true. Both these factors could be related to the way app development is done on each phone as I assume most app developers are not trying to create minor UX differences on purpose.

There are way more iOS exclusive apps I use than Android exclusive apps and it’s not that this is intentional but that simply Android sometimes just don’t offer an app.

I don’t view iMessage as a con you need to undo per your message in another thread, though I acknowledge it going to limbo if you try to move off is a pain. I like handover where calls and text are across devices (especially since I use a Mac and iPad, and have an Apple Watch too). This also means my watch notifications only triggers because of iOS, not with Android even though I believe Android still have a superior notification system overall. I recognize that’s a nuance because I don’t use Android Wear but Android Wear isn’t a valid contender.

Like you, I choose Pixels because I prefer the raw Google experience and most up to date updates (so I don’t buy 3rd party branded Androids with their alternative versions of Android) but that also means I’m not looking to heavily modify my phone out of the book either (downloading stuff to change the UX, launcher, etc).

I also don’t use Firefox as I prefer Chrome on all my devices but there are nuances in the way Safari loads some things that just works better (videos in my opinion and the built in controls on iOS, even when using Chrome on iOS, is better in this regard).

You mentioned the permanent back button as a preference. This is one thing that annoys me to no end on Android. It would be less of an annoyance if there was a permanent forward button as there are times that I accidentally trigger it with no way back but there isn’t. And again, I’m not looking to download something to tweak the UI to include that. On iOS, you might be right that the position of the controls may differ for each app (though I can’t think of that ever been something I noticed) but it’s nice that it includes both forward and backward options whenever I am trying to navigate or accidentally back out of something.

Like I said, you can highlight lots of pros and cons on both sides, way beyond your list or mine, and it’ll come down to personal preference, but there are benefits to the iPhone experience that I value as much as there are in the Pixel experience.

Please forgive any typos, I’m typing on a phone.

EDIT: FWIW, because I use both phones, I have modified my workflow such that I see less and less of these nuances and try to optimize as best as I can the optimal experience of using both. In most cases these days, I have some apps installed on Android only and some on iPhone only because of the difference in experience.