I've always seen the same thing:

user buys some low-mid end Android phone once or twice since the 2010s.

Phones are okay, not exceptional. Build and overall quality, speed, performance, camera, battery on such low-mid end phones 10 years ago was years away the best phones.

Then they see their friends/family iPhone, and they are like "wow, this is so much better" and they instantly see that striking distance.

This won people's minds at the core of the smartphone revolution which Apple vastly led as well and it's here to stick.

It never mattered to anyone when someone produced Android phones better on most aspects that costed 25% less, sales have always been much higher for Apple.

But now? Now in all honesty we can easily compare 300 or even sub 300$ phones to just the previous year's iPhone. The cheaper Pixel 6a is absolutely comparable to the iPhone 13, let alone with the 12 from 2021.

Also, I see more people leaving the Apple ecosystem right now for the inverse reason. Their aging and highly expensive iPhones 8/9/10s they are just so behind even the today's midrange that they are "why would I spend so much again for an iPhone"?

I think the best selling point of modern Apple it's is top of the notch integration between multiple devices. You get one, you kind of snowball in benefits in getting more and staying in the ecosystem.