Strange. My 2012 iMac and MBA are humming along just fine. And they're refurbs. My "bought as new" stuff has been just fine as well. I still have an iPhone 5s that, save for the old battery, works normally.

I haven't encountered a bricked phone via an updated iOS, but I have had android folks who weren't running flagships try to get the latest OS, and brick their phones.

Lastly, when I do have an issue, the apple customer service has just been too good to me over the years. My friend dropped my phone recently, and unluckily for me, it landed on a metal rail, damaging the sleep button. But Apple replaced the phone for free. As well as a wireless keyboard my coworker had me bring in. I had no receipt for that one, but it took too long for them to locate a buyable replacement of that particular model, so the CSR just gave me a newer model, for free. YMMV of course, but they seem empowered to do far more than typical companies.

But this is all pointless; we can go round and round with anecdotes all day.