I think a lot of people are looking for any reason to put Apple down. I'm guessing it's both because Apple and its users love to brag about security and because HN users hate the cost that you pay for that security: a device locked down from its own owner.
That is true - apple is locking everyone out - including the person who paid for it. But that does make the iphone relatively better from a security standpoint.
The overseas android market is a wasteland security side - no one even pretends, they don't even keep the phones updated.
I can think of so many more much more significant security issue, from remote root access to windows machines, potentially intentionally flawed VPN security, TPM on intel machines that are remotely exploitable and provide persistent access to machine and the list goes on and on.
There is something about Apple that makes folks blow up. Perhaps it's just they are one of the few with a bit of a reasonable reputation here.
Steal someone's phone? You realize iphones since Xs forward are using A12+ chips, they don't even have the intel / T2 combo being talked about as far as I know. And then to get access you need to install a keylogger PHYSCIALLY into the macbook. All this is "possible", but you can probably do a keylogger without breaking T2 and get equivalent access at the end of the day.