Hopped on the iPhone train with the 5S. That phone was such a performance beast. Blew the competition out of the water. Android phones at the time looked like toys in comparison.
The gap is a lot smaller now than it used to be, but I’ve just stuck with it. I have a 13 mini now and I love the small size with basically no compromise. I’ll cling onto this thing until it dies and then maybe switch to a Linux phone if they’ve caught on by then.
Kind of. There is the PinePhone and Librem 5 that both run full Linux. I have a Pinephone. Unfortunately, the hardware is underpowered and the software is not ready to replace iOS or Android. The battery is also not good. The standby has improved a lot, so it can last a day of limited use, but the battery drains very quickly when the device is actively being used. It's definitely fun to play around with, and it even has the convergence feature Microsoft tried to do with Windows Phone. The UI changes to regular desktop Linux when plugging the phone into a monitor and connecting a keyboard and mouse. But again, the hardware really limits what can be done.
In short, Linux phones are a thing, but not reliable enough to be the only phone a person has.