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Gives me a lot of flexibility on customizing the look and feel, running apps / doing things that are otherwise prohibited - (e.g. using Android Auto in a banned country, keeping some bloatware apps / system processes from accessing internet, screen projection in AA), cleaner ways of ad blocking, more thorough control of the phone in general.
Using a custom launcher is still one of Android's best features.
I also love having the app drawer. I keep the ten apps I use most frequently on my home screen. Firefox, Maps, PowerAmp, Phone, Messages, YouTube, Amazon Music, my bank... And everything else lives in the app drawer. I worked hard on getting a good wallpaper. I want to see it. That's what I liked least about my old iPod Touch. Once you have a fair few apps, you can't see the wallpaper anymore. If it's not important enough to go on my home screen, I don't mind grabbing it from my app drawer. Plus, I use Nova + Sesame to search. So just pulling up search and typing the first two letters gets me what I want 99.9% of the time.
I can't find shit on my wife's iPhone. I pull up Spotlight by default. I also do this on her MacBook because at least half the time I'm using it, I'm playing around in Terminal.
I bought my first Android smartphone in 2008. In terms of computer ecosystems that I was interacting with leading up to that, I was using Windows, Mac OS, and Linux for various applications, so I don't think there was any tribalism in my decision to go Android. Rather, it was just that in testing Android and iOS through friends and at the telecom store I just could not wrap my head around iOS from a usability perspective. Android just felt really intuitive to me. I never have and probably never will be a mobile device power user, so flexibility in that regard wasn't a factor either. To this day, I've never had any serious software issue with Android devices, and they just do what I need them to do, in a format that I have gelled with from the get-go.
I like android phones because they're cheap. if I damage it, no big deal.
Well, I don't trust the companies.
But Lineage without Google gives me a decent smartphone experience with minimized tracking capabilities for 3rd parties. (Yeah, provider can still do quite a bit, but the VPN takes care of a bit more there, still not all though)
I've been thinking about this for a while. Years ago I would have said customisation (root, custom ROMs, etc) but lately the need for that has gone down a lot for me. Now, it's:
When I was younger I couldn't afford iPhone prices.
Nowadays, Safari is such a pile of trash that ruins my job day to day that by god, I refuse to give the company that made it money
For me, I started out with android back in the 2.3 days. Then custom roms, launchers, rooting was all really fun and exciting. I switched to an iPhone when the X came out after a bad experience with the Pixel 2 XL (QA issues and poor customer service mainly), and I didn't make the switch back until the Pixel 7 came out.
Right now, I'd say I prefer android because the notification system is much better. I have greater control of my homescreen, and more freedom to install software not blessed by either Apple or Google.
I used to be into custom ROMs back in the day so that was my excuse that I didn't want a corporate experience. But that was over a decade ago and all of those community features have now been pulled into the main AOSP. So now the only good reason is because it's the only smartphone OS I've ever owned or used really.
Everything about Apple software rubs me the wrong way. It's like it's wired opposite to my brain. I had a mac laptop for years and pretty much hated it.
I've used iPhone sporadically (and developed for them on one project) and you can't change the things I'd want to change. I dislike the home screen grid and they added widgets far too late. It took them multiple years to semi-fix notifications. The lack of a back button still perplexes me, especially when one app launches another.
Unfortunately I'm increasingly feeling that Android is a buggy mess too. Android 12 was a complete disaster and my phone is still messed up from it (some apps still don't get notifications) even though I'm now on 13. Google is focusing on the wrong things IMO but I don't think I'd last 48h on iPhone. I actually preferred Windows Phone to iOS. Don't get me wrong I don't think iPhone is a bad product in any way (except how closed everything is), it works for a lot of people - just not me.
I've got no great love for Android but the ecosystem is a lot less locked down for the most part compared to the Apple side. That at least opens up the door for tinkering with other options and controlling my environment.
I use Nokia 5.3 which does everything I want it to and then some and I got it for like $200 brand new. You can't get a new iPhone for $200 I'm pretty sure.
I use it because I want something that is customizable.
Honestly, they're the only smartphones I've ever used, going all the way back to the MyTouch 3G. Well, my first "smart" phone was a Sidekick that I got in 2009 or so, but I upgraded to Android and the MyTouch 3G when my cousin gave it to me when she got a new phone.
Since then I've had a Galaxy S, Galaxy S5, Note 5, and I've had a Pixel 4a 5G for a couple of years now.
Oddly enough I've been on the fence about going to iPhone for my next phone. I have a lot of time and money tied up in the Play Store, and I know it doesn't just go away when I get a new phone, but I've gotta take some stock before I make a switch. Apple products have become more and more enticing as I get older. I used to have harder feelings about the phone divide, but I honestly haven't cared the past 5 years, a good phone is a good phone.
Just switched back to Android a few days ago after using the iPhone for quite some time. Customization and control were my favorite reasons for Android in the past and it stayed the same. I use a Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS. The fact that I even have an option to use a different OS that focuses on privacy is amazing.