I could say the same for android 11: screen recording, and centralized home automation control are old news for iOS users.

I'm pretty sure Android has had widgets and an app drawer from the very beginning.

I haven't tried iOS 14 yet but historically Apple is almost never the first to release a feature. Their supporters will say that Apple prefers to wait until they can release a more fully baked version. iPhone was not the first smartphone, but it was the "best" (for most people) when it was released, etc.

Apple continues to invest in the user experience and potential privacy. Unlike Android, the features that require data processing and ML are not offset into the cloud. This means that if Apple finally moves to encrypting the iCloud storage, users won't loose semantic search over their photo library, health data, and other similar features.

(I particularly like the new option to pre-select the photos that you want an app to see, rather than giving complete access to my photo library)

This is not factual, this is Apple marketing.

There's no indication Apple is doing anything noteworthy regarding privacy.

Apple specifically declares that they do these things on device. If they don't, this is an opportunity for a class action.

Serving a 301 redirect from an outdated page to a new one the way they are doing with the iOS 13 page is the exact way you're supposed to do it, and is part of Google's guidelines. It's not an SEO trick, it's how you get rid of old pages without creating a poor user experience.

They introduced widgets via the Dashboard on Mac long before Android was a thing. They’ve had widgets in iOS for years as well - what’s new is that they’re not confined to the notifications slide-down any more.

I hardly think Apple has to worry about getting their SEO up, ha! :P That's a good one.