The big one for me is the ecosystem and tight integration. If you’re in Apple’s ecosystem, then everything works together without having to jump through hoops. Factor in your friends and family in the same ecosystem, and it gets even better for sharing.
Cost of ownership for the item’s life cycle. Apple can cost a bit more upfront, but their products are supported longer, and they hold their value. Sure, other companies are starting to claim similar support, but until that support is realized, they’re just claims; see Pixel Pass.
This is a perk for me, but first-party apps aren’t prone to disappearing. We all joke around that Google comes out with a new app and kills it a few years later, but those choices have a real impact on the people who use them. Yeah, Apple is slow to update, and some of their apps are just bad Podcasts, but the chances of them going away are small. As someone who’s AuDHD, I don’t particularly appreciate reworking a workflow I’ve worked so hard to create because Google decided to take another crack at something by launching a new app with fewer features.
Microsoft decided to kill Windows Phone.