Characterizing iOS 11 as a mess is a gross exaggeration. If you told 99% of iPhone user's their phone was a mess, they wouldn't know what you were talking about. I would say Android version fragmentation is a significantly larger mess than anything Apple has ever done.

> You just need to look at the frequency of iOS 11 point releases to see what a mess they've created

Another interpretation is that they care more about software quality, and are fixing things that would be left broken by other manufacturers.