Yes but part of the selling point a lot of the time does perversely come back to US-centric companies providing the leaders of Governments and Corporations a Backdoor-As-A-Service product to force upon those lower down in the pecking order.

Oh yeah, I am livid about that ughh.

I hate Android with a bloodcurdling passion but yes.

Apple has the most condescending design philosophy I know of and I will never tolerate the degree of suffocation Apple imposes on devices you have purchased and own.

Also Android has F-Droid which makes Android categorically superior to iOS.

https://f-droid.org/en/

Get all of your core basic apps like flashlight apps, image gallery apps, file browser apps etc… from F-Droid.

Samsung? I hate samsung and yet I have an older used flagship samsung phone and ultimately that is what I recommend doing with Android, always buy near top of the line phones (samsung or otherwise), just go used and older until you hit a price point you are comfortable with. This reduces the headaches you will run into with Android a lot since you are always getting the experience Android was meant to give and that designers focused on especially when it comes to the hardware and camera + camera app.

I recommend Swappa for buying used electronics/phones since the website is dedicated to only those kinds of sales and provides a lot of confidence and comfort vs. buying off a random ebay seller.

https://swappa.com/

edit ALSO on Android you can change your launcher/homescreen, the idea that you can’t do this on iOS blows my mind even though it doesn’t surprise me…

Where I draw the line for whether it is ethical to light things on fire is when they start destroying rare knowledge and books as fast as possible for no other reason than to hoard and obscure knowledge for private benefit.

It is one thing to fund the creation of knowledge and then hoard it, it is entirely another to begin actively attacking and destroying pre-existing publicly shared resources of knowledge in the pursuit of monetizing access to that very knowledge behind a gargantuan profit motivated entity.

Meh just accelerate with F-force and then switch to G-force when you are up to speed and vice versa when slowing down, problem solved!