I think the major problem with Android is the unstoppable fragmentation. With low-end and high-end devices born every quarter, I find QA a nightmare. On the other end, if a bug can't be fixed after a year on a flagship device like Nexus 5 means there is something wrong with bug prioritization.
I know 7 and 8 aren't available, but I thought it got up to 6.
Apple does indeed a better job at supporting older devices, however new iOS releases are basically unusable on devices older than 2 years. I have for example a 2-year old iPad 3 and iOS 8 is usable on it, but for iPhone 4S or IPad 2 the upgrade turned usable devices into unusable ones.
The real problem is they're still selling it brand new (in the form of the non-retina Mini) and with Apple's policy of supporting devices for 2 or 3 years that means the device will get six years of updates, even though it's already aging badly at this point.
I still have an iPhone4S in a drawer; it's visibly slower than when it was under iOS6 and even compared to a 5S it's night and day, but compared to other middle range android phones that's still decent. Side to side with a Moto G for instance, it's basically the same reactivity, but no one would call the Moto G an unusable device.
That's quite a big difference. I've been pretty happy with my Nexus 4, and hoping to get a full third year out of it... since the Nexus 5 isn't a huge bump, and the N6 is way out of the ballpark on pricing imho. I've been recommending the Moto G LTE for most people lately... it's a usable phone without a lot of extra monthly expense.
The Moto G is under 250 unlocked and the first gen is one year old. The 4S went for a bit less than 700, is now 3 years old and resells for roughly 200. I don't think comparing the performances of the two under the most recent OSes available is biased.
There's a reason Windows XP has stuck around for so long... most people don't need anything beyond XP. Sure they need security updates and new drivers, but these things are in the background. XP had, essentially, everything anybody will need for the next 50 years.
Am I the only one who had the last iPhone 3 iOS update? It almost bricked the damn phone, making the interface impossibly slow.
The Apple phone I had became nigh unusable with a forced update. It's not contextual frame of reference - it just didn't work.
That doesn't mean that backwards compatibility and long-term support isn't a good thing for the consumer, but it really has nothing to do with the concept of "cool".