Apple does make cameras, or at least resells cameras. They just so happened to be attached to phones and tablets.

Nope

If she is not wanting to convert be prepared for no positive reactions for the money your spent. I hope she is thrilled, just be prepared.

The flashing lights are your faceID cameras doing their thing.

Though, it’s hard to say for sure if any IT component is not spying on you. Odds are you have apps like Facebook or Amazon installed which are well known for farming your data.

Any limitation you implement you can remove. Any other solutions would be enterprise focused and require MDM and associated security tools and IT to manage them. Really your answer is self control is your only option.

Parental controls only work for someone who is under 18. Apple automatically disables them if you age is 18+. Otherwise you are spot on.

I have it set to the mute button. I use it about as much as I used the mute switch.

It’s already not supported. The real question is how long will iOS 16 be supported for, and I wager not much longer.

A desktop like experience that is presented when connected to a monitor. We all know that is never happening, so a more grounded alternative; separate volume controls for different apps.

iPhones/Androids are a tool, tools are not meant to be “cool”. Tools are meant to be useful, and you use the tool that fits your use case. If Apples/Google/etc tools do not fit the use case, then that is a problem that Apple/Google/etc needs to address.