The hardware is still marginally better but the experience is no longer better. In fact with android at least you can sideload and install full powered ad blockers. At some point once the iOS experience degrades beyond a certain threshold, android will be a more attractive option.
From the perspective of a casual user, on Android you get mobile Chrome which doesn't do extensions at all, while on iOS mobile Safari has extensions including ad blockers.
On Android you can get Firefox with its own rendering engine which can run full uBlock Origin. On iOS sure you can get some ad blockers on Safari but not the full powered uBlock Origin. Or you can get Firefox but it's just a reskinned Safari and can't run the powerful ad blockers.
I agree, what I said should not have conflated "rendering engine" with "ability to install fully powered ad blockers". What I meant by that was that Safari's renderer on iOS doesn't allow the full uBlock Origin no matter if you use a reskin of it or not (firefox, brave, etc.), but if Firefox and its rendering engine were allowed on iOS (similar to how it is on android) we would have the full power ad blocker.
It makes a difference. I have uBlock Origin lite on my iPhone and it misses ads on Facebook that uBlock Origin on my PC blocks. Facebook has the most advanced anti-ad-blocker tech, so they're a good benchmark for how effective an ad blocker is.
