Phone upgrades have not been exciting for years The last time I upgraded a phone and was truly excited was going from the Nexus 4 to the Nexus 6P. Back then (could still be the same) Android was notorious for phasing out older Android versions. I remember absolutely loving the Nexus 4 and then over time my apps slowly became no longer supported/useable due to the version of Android the device had. That is a terrible business model. That, among others, was one of the driving forces that pushed me towards iOS. I have been using an iPhone since early 2017, I see no chance of me ever going back to the Android platform.
I started with the iPhone 8. The microphone broke, moved to the 11 Pro. Used that model for just over 3 years and picked up my current 14 Pro Max. They have all been fantastic, but not what I would deem as exciting.
Apple is invested in keeping this platform updated.
I started using Android phones back in 2011. I had multiple devices that became simply irrelevant due to no meaningful system updates. Back in the day, almost every app that you cared about using required consistent updates to stay usable. At that time, I thought it was ludicrous that anyone would pay $200+ for a phone. I waded through the swamp of cheap Android phones for several years and finally got the Nexus 4 (secondhand; well after the Nexus 5 was already out). I loved it for about 6 months, until it didn’t get the latest Android update.
I jumped on the Nexus 6P at launch and used it for almost two full years. It met the same demise in terms of eventually stopping updates. This was Google’s flagship device. That soured me entirely on the Android platform at that point.
My next purchase was the iPhone 8. I never looked back. I will never purchase another Android in a market where the iPhone exists.