After using my 16e since March I can confirm & conclusion that Android is the best of the bestest. iOS still have a long way to go to match Android ease of use. The screen gestures control is the easiest example, on Android it's so fluid & intelligent, on iOS lolol it's like operating controllling a remote control toy car.

Maybe u confusing yourself , i been using google photos for so many year without any problem    , cuma not sure is their server or my connection problem , it sometime might take a little bit time to appear on https://photos.google.com/ link , need a few refresh sometime , but so far so good , Sync from my iphone , ipad , android , windows PC perfectly.
Deleting photo thru your phone wont del the picture from Google Photos , u need to del the photo from Google Photos apps because the App was act as "CLOUD" , so if u del from CLOUD photo , only your other phone will follow to disappear.
The best thing to use Google Photos was after sync to it , i can del the photo / video from my phone    With icloud , it stil need eat some space from your phone for the thumbnail size of photo on your phone , which i think a little bit weird for a cloud service , So i never need to worry my phone full of Picture/video that eat up my storage.

And some android phone actually default the Google Photos as their Default Photo Album  Maybe u really need to find a proper tutorial video on youtube , once u figure out , its super powerful Cloud Photo Album i would say so far.
I can change to ANY DEVICE anytime , just login my google account , and all my OLD Photo gallery was appear on my Google Photos Apps