Is flash drive the same thing as SSD? I meant flash drive I know there couldn't be a spinning disk in there lol
SSD's use Flash. The technology between the flash ICs, SSDs, HDDs, etc. are irrelevant to this discussion.
Lots of applications mindlessly installed on a Desktop OS tends to have a slowing effect because those apps are free to adjust registry and core bits of the OS to setup startup and background processes.
iOS is heavily locked down, all apps are sandboxed. There is little to no chance except in error for there to be startup or background processes causing the device to get 'jammed up'.
It's restrictive yes, and one of the reasons iPhones are divisive products. Android/OS community hates the lock down, some of us who are fans, love the security and clean operation.
If you want more speed, try disabling some of the Spotlight databases index locations. The huge logs of messages and emails, and apps that it indexes for quick searching.