It's not that easy on Android either. Rooting usually requires a factory reset and several apps (e.g. banking) will not work if they detect the system is rooted.
Installing F-Droid is not hard. No need for root. In fact, the usual criticism is that it's too easy.
There are a number of scary warnings to click through but that's it. Not great for security but the official distribution is good enough that it's not a problem outside a few select countries where doing business is hard.
The fact that you can't install apps from your own xcode and run locally (used to be at all now I guess seven day limit) is silly.
On Android, with Android 12, we can now have apps on neostore (fdroid frontend) auto update. There is no good reason to defend apple here. You as a user are always free to not install third party app stores.
There is no need to root to install software on Android. Rooting is only required for permissions that no app (save pre installed apps), whether installed via Play store or not, can be given.
There are a number of scary warnings to click through but that's it. Not great for security but the official distribution is good enough that it's not a problem outside a few select countries where doing business is hard.