Could not have said it better, I have found the same experience myself in the tech realm, I much prefer Linux to any other operating system for obvious reasons.

Apple has convinced a large amount of the population that they need to be locked into a walled garden to be 'safe' which is a) a lie, b) hugely anti-competitive and c) has made Apple more money than they know what to do with. They repeatedly have the most cash on hand of any company in the world. Apple pays 0 tax every year in the US due to loopholes and is a large drag on the economy for this reason, they are cash hoarders. Kids in school are brainwashed to think they need some shiny new apple phone to be part of the cool crowd. It's just a status symbol more than anything at this point even though it's an objectively worse system than the alternatives in many ways. IMO they are selling the smug attitude and talking points more than any new features. It's all marketing gimmicks every step of the way. Apple stores and their techs being called 'geniuses'? Everything down to the design of the store makes you feel like you are in some kind of tech dystopian nightmare, it's all image. The lock-in to the OS and App store should be enough for an antitrust case in the US IMO, but the US cares more about corporate money than protecting its people.

Additionally they have been found to slow down old devices purposefully, the right to repair is non-existent (good luck with this Apple!), not to consider the environmental impact on creating all these phones that are worthless if you want to run something different than apple iOS, and the fact that privacy is not valued nearly as much as Apple leads you to believe. There is still data harvesting going on at Apple, it's a revenue stream that is too tempting to large companies. They can access any of your iCloud data at any time unless you opt-in to ADP. There have been many times Apple was found to be lying, or not telling the whole truth about the privacy of users using their platform, like the location data issues in 2019, there have been privacy/tracking lawsuits in 2022, 2023, etc. There have been many security issues found with apple products that have never had a CVE, the proper security response, so as to obscure proof of the flaw, without proper disclosure. Security fixes are hidden many times and the end users not made aware of the issues. I have met many uninformed professionals in my space unaware of this due to drinking the apple Koolaid. Or they commonly don't care because family uses them, etc.

Now that the platform is as far-reaching, we are starting to see many exploits for Apple products, including ransomware, malware, etc so their remaining time that many people unrealistically regard them as the 'most secure platform' is limited. We are starting to see safari/webkit 1 click and 0click exploits very commonly. There are probably millions of other security holes to be found in their platform, just like any other. ML and great minds will help us find them over time.

I'm not saying that Android doesn't have any issues, etc. The difference is that one platform pretends to be better than the others and has been found to have been lying or not telling the whole truth in the past, many times. They are a shady company as well, and the whole market needs much more regulation. The EU seems to be leading the way on this.