I know many people who complain about migrants “faking their conditions” or “getting bribed by biden” because they have a smartphone which they can only imagine is an iPhone. Like if you don’t have have a polka dot sack tied to a stick and wearing plastic bottle sandals and using Nokia flip phones, you’re not struggling. But funny enough, if you live inside your car that’s fully licensed and registered, then they’re unable to make the connection that the person is not so far from our own financial situation.
I had to sit there and explain to them the concept of prepaid phones and how there are a billion android phones available with 3 cameras, face unlock, capable of shitty mobile games, and so on starting from $5 to $300. Not everything is a $1000 iPhone 20 XL. And despite this, their final thoughts are “ok, but still the democrats are bribing them.” 
So, I see this comment a lot, but am always a little confused. Are other phone manufacturers not doing those same things? Is there solid evidence that Google, Samsung, or the 1,000s of random Chinese offerings are better in that regard? Why call out iPhones when all smartphones use essentially the same materials and will inevitably be e-waste in less than a decade?
many other manufacturers are cheaper and have much less pretense/cloak and dagger bullshit around the manufacturing and parts sourcing than apple, but they're certainly still ewaste in a few years yeah, if anything some are worse on the ewaste front than apple (though the gap is shrinking IMO)
It also depends on the culture though. Japan still values analog technology, and even their fashion trends are slow to change, because they prefer immersion into something