"Will those improvements finally make Android a match for Apple iOS, which has had an unbroken six-year streak of being malware-free?"
This is such misinformation. iOS had bunch of malwares, and only claims about "no malware" were for non-jailbroken devices. But then you should have compared that to non-sideloading Android ... and note that by default, sideloading is NOT enabled, just like by default iOS devices are not jailbroken.
AND even non-jailbroken iOS devices did have malware, like for example http
/www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/07/07/there-is-too-malware-on-the-iphone/
So, you have two false claims, or bad reporting, issues:
1) you compare non-jailbroken iOS devices with Android devices where sideloading is enabled
2) even for non-jailbroken devices, your claim of "six-year streak" is false