Google did it around the same time.
One of the final straws for me was when they killed Google Play Music out of nowhere and forced everyone over to YouTube Music which is inferior in basically every way.
The only thing I missed when I first switched was free unlimited Google Photos backups I got with the Pixel phones. It was around that exact same time that the Pixel 5 launched, and Google announces that Pixels no longer get that perk. And the free, compressed tier also uses up your Google Drive space now. That basically cemented my feeling that I made the right decision.
Oh, and then the next major upgrade to Android introduced Material You, forcing you into having a bizarre pastel shade of a color based on your wallpaper across your entire OS, and it looks horrible. Every decision Google has made about Android since I left has only made me more glad I'm not on the Google wild ride any more.
I'm 2 years in and I don't really miss anything about Android.
Market share doesn't tell the true story. It's all about revenue. Apple generates nearly twice the profits of Google from one third the number of devices.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/05/app-store-earns-7...
Android announced this year that from now one, the comission rate will be 15% even the first year. And 15% is still indecent, people must be really perturbed in modern society to find such power abuse acceptable.
Blood from a stone and all that. You can only milk people for what they've got, and you can bet that Google's 15% number is not coming out of the kindness of their hearts. It's a competitive tactic to lure app developers away from what they know is a more lucrative platform. Point being that Apple users are, on average, much wealthier and more willing to spend money in an app store, and thus much more profitable per MAU.
No the only maximally pro-thesis consequence you could speculate from data is that Apple users have on average, maximally 15% more money willing to spend. Of course in many cases the fact they pay 50% more to apple (global 15%) does not imply that this excess money would be spent in additional app purchases, only a subset would and spending often have diminishing returns. I would say that the average apple user has 5-8% more money to spend, and as said, in the ridiculously pro-thesis case, 15%. Therefore the effect you're trying to show is in fact very small.
That someone willing to pay for a premium product is likely to be wealthy is a reasonable conjecture for items where the item is so expensive that a typical middle-class customer is making a substantial sacrifice to purchase, if they can do so at all.
So for architect-designed homes, small-volume luxury cars, cigarette boats, personal jets... Absolutely. Middle-class people can and do buy small-volume luxury cars, but it's a big compromise and most of the people driving Bentleys are actually wealthy.
iPhones are not that kind of luxury item, they're what we might call "affordable luxuries." Even the most tricked-out iPhone is within reach of your typical 9-5 full-time employee if they want one.
Other "affordable luxuries" include things like premium alcoholic drinks, expensive basketball shoes, carbon bicycles, and Fashion brands such as Polo Ralph Lauren that specialize in pretending to be exclusive but distributing their wares in department stores.
Owning an affordable luxury in no way suggests you're significantly wealthier than people who buy an affordable substitute for the same product. It's more about signalling taste than means.
I don't have links but I've seen reports that on average, iOS users make considerably more heavy use the "smart" features of their phones (and thus, buy and use more apps), which lines up with this. While there are "power users" who make heavy use of Android's more technical features and deep customization, they probably aren't a large enough group to make up the difference.
PCalc is my go-to, though most days I reach for the HP 48G that's sitting on my desk.