This is the privacy community, I wouldn’t consider iOS appropriate here at all, since you really can’t do anything to limit the data collection. Especially not for a “what phone should I get” question. If someone already has an iPhone, asking what you can do is a good question (“not much” is the answer you’ll get).
Is it better out if the box than most Androids? Probably, maybe, depending on how that’s defined. But I can quickly make most Androids far better than iOS, even ones with a lot of vendor bloat.
For example, I recently cleaned up a Verizon Samsung just using the Universal Android Debloat Tool. This is stuff I used to do manually with ADB.
Then adding a VPN and I could restrict apps calling home and bypass Google DNS.
You can even disable google services, play, etc, and just don’t use a google acccount on the phone.