It is simply unbeatable on the laptop market currently, imo.
It's true that now high end android phones are as expensive than high end iphones, so on this point of view it's not a criteria
The iPhone SE is better than any comparable Android phone and will receive updates for another 5 years.
So "You can't find a cheap new iPhone" is not true. If you're willing to take 1 extra step and get a month of prepaid service you can get a cheap iPhone.
Also, the macs are not at all locked down if we are talking about that. OSX is pretty much a general linux with a generally supported graphical environment on top.
MBP from 2017 is the oldest supported device.
Also, iphones are supported for almost 10 years.
I'm not asking about phones, we were talking about laptops.
It makes perfect sense that they'd be against anything that circumvents their walled garden, and a VM does just that by allowing users/developers to use their OS without buying their hardware.
I personally hate it, and it's why I'll never touch any Apple product.