Such updates are not optimized for older iphone. iphone becomes painfully slow if you update it post the 2nd year, better to stick to the older version.
Problem is apple won't even give you security updates till you don't forcefully update your phone. After that they will make it deliberately slower to force you to buy a new one. Please read up on the law suit apple deliberately makes iphone slower.
On android you atleast have the option of a rom. if company provided updates in the 3rd year are so important for you, you can pickup a pixel phone or even a realme phone. There are other options too like Nokia.
The updates and android not beeing smooth comes down to old beliefs which people have from using android many years ago but these things haven't been true for Android for a few years now.
I am Android fan who is using using ios right now so i will say my two cents having tried both.
Agree that Apple used to slow the phones down, I assume that has changed after the lawsuit mess.
Samsung also had to settle a lawsuit by paying millions because they were also caught slowing the phones deliberately.
I have used a poco fand being a nerd I used to keep running benchmarks and record the frame rates during pubg. Over the course of 18 Months, the phone had been slowed down considerably.
It wasn't about the hardware because the benchmarks and pubg frame rates used to go back to great when on pixel experience, Nitrogen OS, Lineage OS and Resurrection Remix (Didn't try others)
What I mean to say is that many manufacturers slow their devices down either knowingly or unknowingly. It isn't an ios or Android thing.
Now about rooting, less than 20% of the a Android phones Have a good community for Roms. Only some Xiaomi phones and Oneplus phones have good support.
Right now i haven't even gotten into the problems with rooting. Many rooms have seLinux set to permissive. Many other roms don't support Twrp unlock password prompt at the start. Which means if the device gets stolen, the thief can easily access the data. If the bootloader is locked then the thief will need to reset the phone and wipe all data. But with an unlocked bootloader, if a Twrp password locking isn't supported, it can be risky.
In short, there are too many troubles with rooting. Also, you need to know what you are doing and it isn't for everyone.
While there are many things Android does better - battery life, charging speed, gcam on budget phones, high refresh rates, 1000x better ux for dual sim usage, ability to clear app data without needing to uninstall an app, good file manager, ability to transfer files using a USB cable, the ability to actually turn off wifi and Bluetooth antenna (ios only disconnects but does not turn off), rooting with xposed framework, ability to stop charging at 80% by using third party apps etc etc
There are some areas where Android can't touch ios - long and on time security updates, Zero frame drops in UI (readers can turn on profile gpu rendering in developer options to check what I mean).
I think for anyone who isn't a nerd, ios is not a bad choice at all. Not value for money maybe, but still a good choice if you are okay paying a bit extra. For nerds (like me), Android is awesome and ios can be frustrating. I had to put my second sim into another phone because the ux on the iphone for switching between sims was so bad. I still love the zero frame drops on ui and the timely and long updates.
