Apple can provide cover for this restriction by touting their T2 security chip and underlying architecture that enables their chain-of-trust. It just so happens that they’re the only company that is authorized to use those chips, so it’s a very wink-and-a-nod excuse at best.

I had an old boss who left Silicon Valley to work for GM. He used to show up in my socials asking why anybody would bother to buy a Tesla when Chevy Volt could do everything a Tesla 3 could do at half the price. It’s like, bro – not everybody values what you do.

I totally get your perspective. For me it’s the tight integration, and the “it just works” aspect of the whole Apple ecosystem, including Watch with Fitness+, Airpods, iPad, and MacOS.

Starting with my morning, my alarm I set on my phone gently wakes me up on my watch. Turning off the watch deactivates the Sleep Focus on my Watch, iPad, and iPhone without me having to do anything.

I go to work out, and activate my Fitness+ Treadmill-routine on my iPad. My watch starts tracking my workout and reports it to my iPad without me needing to do anything. Meanwhile, I put on my Airpods, and they connect without any prompting.

When I’m done with my workout, I pull out my iPhone and fire up Podcasts. The Airpods switch from the iPad to the iPhone automatically.

When I get to my desk, my Airpods, again, switch to my Mac so I can have video-calls there. If my phone rings during the day, I can take the call, once again, without manually switching.

When I get a PDF I need to sign, I can open it on my Mac, click the Signature button, and direct it to use my iPad to capture the signature with an Apple Pencil. It just works without any extra effort.

If I take a photo of a prototype product I’m working on, I can Airdrop it to my Mac for further Photoshopping. Two clicks on my Phone.

If I need to focus for a while, and tune out any notifications, I change my Focus mode on my Mac to “Work” and the only notifications I get on my Phone, Mac, iPad, and Watch can come from my boss. When I’m done, deactivating that Focus mode turns it off for all my devices.

The sheer quantity of additional features Android has are less interesting to me if they work inconsistently, or not without a lot of tweaking and management. The Apple ecosystem works for me because I don’t have the time or patience to tweak settings.