I don't know how representative I am, but I just want something that respects my privacy and doesn't try to monetize my every interaction, while being open enough that I can run what I want on it (apps, not OS). Android fails at the first and iOS fails at the second.
I like in principle that Android is open source (minus all the proprietary junk getting jammed into Play Services). I or someone could verify that it's not sending my data to a sketchy third party, but only to a point. Unless the OS and all apps are completely open source, any closed source component could be secretly betray me. Ironically, though, I trust Apple a lot more to write privacy-respecting code even though it's all proprietary. But on Android I do what I can to mitigate these issues, by running as much tracking- and ad-blocking software as I can (a thing that isn't really possible on iOS, at least not to the same extent). And I do have some apps sideloaded that I'd miss if I had an iPhone. But I still assume that Google is not being a good steward of any data it gleans from my Android usage, and that sucks.
I don't care too much about the ability to make modifications. The hurdle to jump to go from a stock to custom ROM is pretty high nowadays, as I expect most financial apps (and probably some others) to aggressively detect enabled root access and refuse to run. And the process of building your own OS images to make tweaks is not particularly fun, and can be a mess to clean up if you make a mistake. It's critical to me that my phone doesn't have downtime, so I'm less likely to mess around with it.
The problem with the current crop of "Linux phones" is that (while they do respect privacy, don't try to monetize every interaction, and are open enough to run what I want on them) they don't have anywhere near the polish of iOS or Android, and are (understandably) missing key applications that I use daily. So anything I use will have trade offs. For better or worse (probably worse) I've chosen the easier path of Android, at least for now.
Having said that, I do think I want to get a PinePhone, not to use as my primary mobile device, but as something to tinker around with. Maybe it's something that eventually could be a primary device, at least for some situations, but I don't see that as being the case without a lot of work, and a lot of customization that I have to do myself, which I don't really care to do all that much.
I like in principle that Android is open source (minus all the proprietary junk getting jammed into Play Services). I or someone could verify that it's not sending my data to a sketchy third party, but only to a point. Unless the OS and all apps are completely open source, any closed source component could be secretly betray me. Ironically, though, I trust Apple a lot more to write privacy-respecting code even though it's all proprietary. But on Android I do what I can to mitigate these issues, by running as much tracking- and ad-blocking software as I can (a thing that isn't really possible on iOS, at least not to the same extent). And I do have some apps sideloaded that I'd miss if I had an iPhone. But I still assume that Google is not being a good steward of any data it gleans from my Android usage, and that sucks.
I don't care too much about the ability to make modifications. The hurdle to jump to go from a stock to custom ROM is pretty high nowadays, as I expect most financial apps (and probably some others) to aggressively detect enabled root access and refuse to run. And the process of building your own OS images to make tweaks is not particularly fun, and can be a mess to clean up if you make a mistake. It's critical to me that my phone doesn't have downtime, so I'm less likely to mess around with it.
The problem with the current crop of "Linux phones" is that (while they do respect privacy, don't try to monetize every interaction, and are open enough to run what I want on them) they don't have anywhere near the polish of iOS or Android, and are (understandably) missing key applications that I use daily. So anything I use will have trade offs. For better or worse (probably worse) I've chosen the easier path of Android, at least for now.
Having said that, I do think I want to get a PinePhone, not to use as my primary mobile device, but as something to tinker around with. Maybe it's something that eventually could be a primary device, at least for some situations, but I don't see that as being the case without a lot of work, and a lot of customization that I have to do myself, which I don't really care to do all that much.