My wife and a friend take the pictures for our boys elementary school yearbook. Since my wife has an iPhone 11 Pro, which is better than any digital camera we own, she uses it at the school. There were multiple kids in the school who commented on her iPhone 11 Pro. They knew what the model was from the 3 lenses. I doubt there’s a single kid in that school who could identify an Android model, and even if there were those kids aren’t going to be impressed by the Android.
Apple is sexy. Kids want to wear Airpods. Airpods are expensive and some parents aren’t about to let that happen. I’ve heard of kids cutting the wires off of regular apple headphones to give the appearance of Airpods.
Is there a better moat in all of business? When your product is the only socially acceptable option for the young kids that’s what they are going to buy. And once they’ve got apps and photos and used icloud, etc. are they going to switch to Android? Maybe, but there’s a lot of friction there.
A side note to the first anecdote. If I were apple I would make each year’s premier phone visibly different every year. Why bother to have the best widget when people can’t tell you have the best widget (I’m joking but for a lot of people status is important)? I’d do the same thing for the Apple Watch. They came out with the more expensive airpods this year, and in a brilliant move they look different. They really upped the ante to get the highest status and made it easy to see who anted up.