That's because people don't trust AI that much... and most people don't differentiate between a really cool feature and AI so it's more confusing marketing than anything.
That’s not true. There were multiple AI features presented, just very well-known ones like the babel fish AirPods Pro. Nothing fancy, but it’s still AI and it’s useful.
How are they behind, in terms of things normal people actually use? Apps like ChatGPT work just fine, and I have literally never heard an Android user I know personally talk about something they can do which isn’t available on iOS.
Apple fans would be going crazy with excitement if Apple unveiled Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (AKA "nano banana"). It's the most powerful image editing tool since Photoshop 1.0.