I remember back then, in the early days of the smartphone era, the lack of good Android phones that could be comparable to an iPhone. Even the supposed high-end Android devices were severely lacking in terms of performance and smooth UI when compared to the latest iPhone.

I think that the first Android phone that could actually compete with an iPhone must have been the Samsung Galaxy S3, in 2012, 6 years after the release of the original iPhone in 2007.

Apple was way ahead of the competitors back then, they basically set the golden standard for what a smartphone should look like and it took many years for the competition to catch up.