a vital defense against having your phone stolen is having an Android phone to begin with

Sorry, but this is just a laughable claim to make. Phone thieves aren’t going to hold back and try to figure out if the small slab in your hand is an iPhone 14 or a Pixel 9, they’re just going to take it and figure out what they’ve taken after the fact.

If anything, if they were paying attention to what targets were carrying, they’d be more likely to go for Android because they can still strip them for parts.