That doesn’t change the fact that it’s insecure and will likely become even more insecure as more governments demand more of the same in the name of “protecting the children”.
Regardless if Apple’s actions were better than the alternative, devices devoid of such vulnerabilities such as degoogled phones are inherently more secure and private.
With the exception to GrapheneOS, compared to stock Android and Apple its much more secure and private since it removes everything connected to Google on it.
Then by using Free/Libre Open Source Software apps on F-Droid, as the replacement for Google Play, you can effectively eliminate trackers from your device using apps like Exodus that provides detailed breakdowns on app trackers and permissions.
As well as TrackerControl where you are given granular control over trackers on apps and even on websites you visit. It blocks analytic, fingerprinting, advertising, and other uncategorized trackers.
Then using Privacy Browser you can browse the web using TOR further enhancing your privacy. Whilst having built in tracker, cookie, javascript, and DOM storage controls.
Communicate through Molly (hardened version of Signal only available on android) or Threema and you can keep your communications secure and private.
Couple that with using a VPN like Mullvad or Proton and you can be very private on Android, that of which you cannot achieve on iOS where Apple has built in telemetry harvesting.
So I would say that compared to Apple, Android CAN be far more private and secure, I personally don’t trust that Apple users are private at all considering Apple harvests telemetry and most users use iCloud which, whilst having Advanced Data Protection for most users, they literally took this away from UK residents more recently effectively exposing all of their content.
Who thinks about giving an octopus ecstasy??