To play devil's advocate: What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone, and if there is, what does it matter to a customer? Both can make phone calls, both can display web pages, both can run apps. There's one fairly irrelevant difference because it's an historical accident so it will probably be eliminated soon: one platform owner already controls the platform completely, and the other not yet.

For a normal customer with no tech skills? Android is the one which comes in a full range from “cheap” to “premium” while Apple only comes in “premium”.

You also get to choose which app store you get, Apple or Google, but I’m not sure if normal people know what one of those is.

The new iPhone SE is definitely a mid-market play, blurring it further.

> To play devil's advocate: What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone, and if there is, what does it matter to a customer?

One is a device that works for the customer, the other is a device that works for advertising companies.

> What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone

What is the difference between a cheap Android and a premium Android device relative to difference between iPhone and premium Android?

The difference is that proposed regulation against Apple affects iPhones and not Androids.

You may as well ask what the difference is between Huawei and Cisco in terms of functionality - and certainly there's no difference to a customer - but that difference matters a lot to the US government.