How are they on par SoC-wise? Last time I checked, Qualcomm was still trying to catch up to Apple.

Well, recheck.

Both Qualcomm and Mediatek have caught up on the phone SoC market.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 has a slightly better CPU than the A19 Pro but a slightly worse GPU. Apple has a very slight advantage in watt usage but that's more than offset by the battery gap. Same thing with the Dimensity 9500.

The SoC market is now extremely competitive.