Personally I use Linux unless forced to use something else by my employer.
Why is that in any way exonerating? Most people do most of their actual computing on their phones now, it is not an irrelevant toy platform. We should be more, not less, hard on Apple than Microsoft for pulling this shit on their mobile platform.
Its a psychology trick that took decades of marketing to pull off, but they are deeply entrenched as someone's identity. These users have a religious devotion and will defend them, because an attack on Apple is an attack on them and their group.
If you don't care about a corporate in-group, you are most likely wanting a quality computing platform. Which is why people are so hard on Google an Microsoft when they restrict computing.
My local dollar store has a couple of prepaid android 5.5" phones. Not much size diff from my iphone 12 mini.
Point still taken though - 'regular' sized phones from 6 years ago are mostly gone from the mainstream market. I really hope there's another mini or a bumped up iphone se. I would like them to keep the physical home button with touch id as well. Or maybe a touch id sensor someplace else...?
I also dislike many things apple does but all too often, their hardware quality is good and lasts a long time. I'm still using a 2014 macbook. it is on its last legs but eight years out of a piece of tech is borderline amazing.