I'm always surprised by how much resistance there is to paying for software around here. This audience, more than most, knows how difficult it is to create really great apps. The idea that somebody (not necessarily you) would look at a high quality piece of software that they will use all the time and think $5 (or even $1) is too much is depressing.
Show me the meaning of community that doesn't exist around iOS apps, because I see all these things.
Or by "community" do you just mean "open source, developed collaboratively"? Because that's not something I, and likely most iOS users, rank highly in the factors I look for in an app.
Here are a couple of examples of iOS which have (as far as I can find) nothing on Android that even comes close:
Infuse (https://firecore.com/infuse) - A really nice video play that handles loads of different backends.
NetNewsWire - It's literally one of the examples from the article, but I like RSS and can't find anything as good as NetNewsWire on Android.
Servercat (https://servercat.app) - Just a nice way to monitor servers and run commands. Great for managing my Raspberry pi and other homebrew stuff
Prologue (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/prologue/id1459223267) - An audiobook app that uses Plex as its backend.
Elastic Drums (https://apps.apple.com/app/id817419955) - A great iPad / iPhone drum machine that I use all the time for sketching out ideas.
Smart Comic (https://smartcomicreader.com) - An app for reading my DRM free comics that uses ML to zoom to individual panels in a way that is as good as the official Comixology app.
These are just the apps that I use daily and have no Android peers. Not that no Android apps exist to watch Plex, or read comics. On Android the options are just worse. Usually free, but I'd rather pay for a good app than get a crappy one for free.
I've got loads of complaints about Apple software, but 3rd party software on Apple platforms is really good.
The iPhone apps are all geared toward monetization now. If you want a decent podcast player, you're expected to pay for it, either with dollars or ad eyeballs. Nobody really wants to collaborate on an iOS app. Android has a few options for community-supported players that are quite good.
A lot of iPhone apps want a monthly subscription even if they don't really improve. The ones that ask for one-time payments tend to hide their features in multiple one-time payments. Many smaller apps don't have the residuals that keep their developer interested. They never end in an open source state where someone who cares could take them over, so eventually your investment goes to zero. In this, it's a lot like Windows, except on Windows you can usually rely on backwards compatibility.
Sometimes, using something that has been pushed out the door by a developer who needed to scratch an itch and doesn't care about the aesthetics is preferable to a gorgeous app that lost compatibility at iOS 7, forcing you to buy a different app after an upgrade.
I think, also, the reason why you see this explicit example of the mastodon app being superior, is because the people who care include designers who are willing to donate their time. They themselves use iPhones and don't care about making the Android version because it's not their itch to scratch. That's fine, but it is a contrived example.
Finally, show me the syncthing client that works well on iOS.