I just bought the Pixel 6. That's the flagship device for Android. It doesn't really get any better. It's fine as a phone. It's got a nice screen. The camera isn't bad. Reasonably priced (I payed 555 Euro). And all the other specs people seem to obsess about. But other than that, I struggle to see how this thing is any better than the cheap, four year old Nokia 7 Plus it replaced. I feel slightly ripped off actually. The only thing wrong with that device: the usb c connector was getting flaky (could not charge unless I held the cable just right) and it was no longer getting any security & feature upgrades because Google are being idiots. Lets face it: there has been no meaningful progress for Android phones in the last half decade. It doesn't matter what you buy. You get the same apps & experience with slightly different screens, batteries, cameras, etc.
That's the challenge in this space. A four year old cheap smart phone actually doesn't look half bad compared to the latest and greatest Google has to offer. Whatever Google did since Android 9, I don't really care for any of it. It's not really any better in any way that matters to me. IMHO the gesture bullshit is gimmicky & annoying and the endless Android theme tweaking close to irrelevant at this point. It doesn't feel exclusive to me; just different in a way that doesn't matter to me at all.
The reason Apple has progressed in terms of market share is that they doubled down on what matters. People seem to like IOS as it is and they did not mess with that too much. Other than that, good hardware improvements, software updates for almost anything they sold in the last eight years, and improvements where it matters (screen, camera, speed, etc.). You pay a premium for it but you get what you expect. And then you use the device until it breaks down and you get another one. They offer stability and incremental progress for the life time of the device. There's nothing that Android offers that IOS needs. It has it all.
With Android you're haggling on a lot of different specs between different vendors. And somehow you get a worse deal no matter what you choose. You can go Samsung and deal with their proprietary crap-ware. You can go generic Chinese & out of favor brand and deal with the fact that they've been cut off from the Google Play services. Or you can buy a few me too products from generic Android OEMs and obsess about how many pixels the screen has; how many redundant camera lenses they have, how bad the battery is, etc.
I actually like the Pixel 6 as a phone. But excuse me for not getting too excited about it because it's not exceptional in any way and Google will abandon supporting it in hurry for whatever their next shiny new hot thing is in six months.