It depends on what lens you're viewing this through. Apple only has such a strong stranglehold in the US and Canada in my experience. I moved from the states to Australia and almost nobody that I know has an iPhone here, and a lot of people seem to dislike Apple.
The Pixel and the Galaxy S series of phones would be the high end name brands on Android. Xiaomi is trying to add themselves to that group as well. We will see if they succeed.
There are $100 Android phones coming with 120hz.
People can try and justify it however they want, and there are certainly arguments to be had. But don't pretend it would change the price of the base model whatsoever.
Yeah I had to switch to Google Maps when I was in Japan. I’ve heard some people had success with Apple Maps there, but it got really confused about entrances and exits to subway stations and got me turned around or on the wrong street multiple times. No such issues with Google.
I actually just switched from Apple to Android. I switched to the gestures control scheme, but personally I found that I liked it less than the gestures experience on iPhone and went back to the classic button control scheme.