I used ios, android and windows phone and no you cannot remove all the apps installed by manufacturers. Especially Samsung phones (using Samsung as example cuz it is the most popular in android). They have lot of stuff installed in them that cannot be uninstalled in normal way maybe with adb and special debloater tools but then some apps randomly crash. Everything has two on Samsung like two stores, two email apps, two photo apps etc. on apple this is not an issue. Of course this is not a problem with every manufacturer. I still have oneplus 8 as secondary phone even that has lot of stuff. I have used customs roms since nexus 4 days i know how minimal android images look like with minimal gapps (pico). As far as i know none of the android manufacturers can match minimal android or can be modified to match minimal experience without using custom roms. While ios can be configured to be significantly minimal if you want right after setting it up. I strive to use minimal stuff. I use arch and nixos and configured them to be as minimal as possible so i do know little bit about it. So in my opinion in the current state if i can only select one os then ios is better compared to android (as available in devices available to purchase) i would prefer android in custom rom format but google seems to be making that impossible and moving lot of apps to depend on google play services. You can say lot of shit about apple like not allowing third party engines, shitty app store policies while still allowing sketchy apps on app store, no side-loading, no option of third party stores, vendor lock-in for system backup cloud provider, late to lot of features, heavy repair prices, anti repair using individual component serial number lockin but I don’t think bloatware is one of them. You can remove all but essential minimal apps on ios if you want to but definitely not on android. Sorry for long rant.

Except safari you can uninstall rest

Looks like lot of things changed since last time you actually used an apple device. Apple has swipe down to search for a while now which doesn’t require reaching up. Safari has option to put url bar to top but default is bottom for more than a year now which is reachable. I personally never understood need for third party keyboard apps but that’s personal choice. 3rd party app store is valid suggestion but that seems to be coming in future update. but might be restricted only to EU. You could probably access it by setting iPhone region to some country in EU but that’s speculation.

It is the most powerful until you specifically want to buy led torch light then they put the cheapest possible light in it.

That could be legit. Windows runs things when idle like indexing, scanning for malware, updating etc. As soon as you move your mouse it reduces cpu usage. Which technically looks like a malware trying to run in background without user knowing it.

Finally linux is getting popular enough to make viruses. Yay?. Insert gru meme here

IMO “default” has to be simple and user friendly. I’m not saying kde is not user friendly but it has overwhelming amount of options which I personally think is too much. of course there are people that use these but i think something like gnome is very simple and more approachable. I think this is why many distros use gnome as default. I would consider myself to be a mid level user i started with mint linux -> ubuntu -> debian -> manjaro -> garuda -> arch -> fedora -> and finally settled on nixos. I have tried lot of desktop environments and i liked kde very much but the amount of customisation made it a chore after a while. i can use the defaults perfectly fine but if something has a toggle to choose different options i try all of them. Which i agree is a not applicable for everyone. But i think sometimes taking option away from user works example ios and macos. So, i settled on gnome. I understand it is a personal choice. I’m just trying to explain why it might not be a good default from my perspective.

Esim and carrier lock are not same thing and even with phones with physical sim can have carrier lock.