You typical developer on iOS is targeting a broad spectrum of hardware (even within the iOS line, the software is able to run on various iphone skus dating back possibly 7-9 years).

Console? When I ship a PS4 build, it is THE PS4 BUILD. It has optimizations designed to maximize the memory buses that ship with the PS4 and the PS4 only.

Unless you have to optimize for the PS4 and PS4 Pro. But, what does ease of development have to do with one being more of a computer than the other?

I'm telling you the difference between a console (or embedded platform) versus a general computing device. There is a blurry line to be sure, but the smartphone and a gaming console are clearly on opposite sides of the line. Consoles have dedicated hardware for antialiasing, texture streaming, etc.

And iPhones have dedicated hardware for cellular, video decoding, decryption, a dedicated GPU, motion detection, face detection, etc....

Are you implementing code for them? Virtually every computing device available (your desktop included) is an SoC.

Yes there are APIs targeting the GPU, the Mx coprocessor, the hardware decoder (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/videotoolbox), etc.

But why is that relevant to how one is a general purpose computer and the other isn’t?

How many people use a game console as their primary computer? What about their phone?

Well, if they are using the phone as their primary computer, it must be good enough. How is Apple stopping people from doing what they want to do with their phone?

And before you bring up an esoteric development scenario, I assure you that developers aren’t using their phone as their primary computer.