I agree that the iPhone is great for people who aren’t tech savvy. I wouldn’t recommend an Android phone to my mother, admittedly in part because when she asks me to help her fix something on it or her Mac my response is usually “don’t worry, just take it to the Apple Store and they’ll fix it.” It’s also the only choice for people who’ve bought into Apple’s own (make no mistake privacy-invading) app and messaging ecosystem.
For someone like me, who can bung a custom ROM onto a rooted and unlocked 2-year old “new” phone and then maintain it while runing it into the ground for 3-4 years, an Android phone makes a lot more sense. Being the “tech guy with the old Android phone that can do more than your brand new iPhone can” has become part of my trademark.
Getting back on-topic, I suspect that one way or another that so long as China is the site of your device’s manufacture, it’s going to find a way to extract private data from whatever brand you’re using.
