Phones are only used for a few years. Within 4-5 years, virtually no one will use a HEVC-only iPhone.

What about smart TVs?

They make a fine display device to plug an updated Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast, or Roku into.

Software can be updated if the hardware support is there. Arguing that new codecs don't have hardware support in older TV's has nothing to do with how patented that codec is. Speculatively adding support for upcoming codecs is easier if you don't have to pay to play.

What about them? Even if we have to wait 10 years or so to phase out support for those that don't support newer formats and can't be upgraded, that's still a win.

By then it won't matter. The patents on h.264 will have expired.

So what? Then we have to deal with the newer h.265 patents, and the even newer patents associated with whatever comes next.

Pushing open formats now means we develop a habit of only allowing open formats into industrial standards, which means in the medium and long term we all win with lower costs.

iOS users are welcome to purchase devices that have proper support for standards at their next refresh cycle.

How did that workout for Adobe with Flash?

Most users did not want flash. Most users don't want web apps or apps inside web views, but they'll use those if they have to. Why switch phones to get flash if you really wanted a native experience in the first place?

"Most users didn't want Flash". That's a lot of revisionist history. Apple was being knocked for not supporting Flash from the time the first iPhone was released in 2007 until a year or two after the iPad was released in 2010.

Rephrase, most users didn’t want phones that burned up their battery capacity, or more often just out and out crashed repeatedly when playing videos.