These discussions are not very useful, because they are based anecdotal evidence. Just to offer a counterpoint: my mother never used a computer and is non-tech

These discussions are not very useful, because they are based anecdotal evidence. Just to offer a counterpoint: my mother never used a computer and is non-technical, but she manages great with her iPad (she does chat, Facetime, and web browsing). She had a couple of hand down Android phones (IIRC, Moto E, Moto G, and later a Samsung Galaxy Note 4). The Android phones were very confusing to her and she had difficulty contacting anyone while on the go. She recently got an iPhone and she manages without trouble. The problem is that there are a so many factors: prior experience (my mom used an iPad before), extremely small sample sizes, biases (if you are an iOS fan you like to believe that iDevices work better for your loved ones), etc. There are only some aspects that we can objectively evaluate (iDevices get security updates for longer periods, iDevices typicaly get more frequent updates). When it comes to usability, you can only get meaningful information from large samples.