I feel like Apple sat down and said "how can we make sure this NEVER works unless you're only using Apple devices?" and intentionally sabotaged open standards.

The last time I had to do this between two Android devices I just used wifi direct and it worked flawlessly. And yet Apple doesn't support WiFi direct? I can't explain Windows, but the fact that iOS won't interoperate with Android seems like an intentional choice by Apple to make their customers' lives harder.