When using ViewChildren with ngFor in an Angular 15 app you don't get the children

Question

I have a simple Angular 15 app and ViewChildren is not working, even with a setTimeout() within ngAfterViewInit, in which I subscribe to changes of the ViewChildren instance:

app.component.html

<app-simple 
  *ngFor="let simpleStr of testStrings"
  [str]="simpleStr"></app-simple>

app.component.ts

import { AfterViewInit, Component, QueryList, ViewChildren } from '@angular/core';

import { SimpleComponent } from './simple/simple.component';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html'
})
export class AppComponent implements AfterViewInit {
  @ViewChildren(SimpleComponent) simpleChildren?: QueryList<SimpleComponent>;

  testStrings: string[] = [
    "simple one",
    "simple two",
    "simple three"
  ];

  ngAfterViewInit(): void {
    setTimeout(() => {
      this.simpleChildren?.changes.subscribe({
        next: (data) => {
            if (this.simpleChildren && this.simpleChildren.length) {
                this.simpleChildren.forEach((simple: any) => {
                    if (simple) {
                        console.log(simple.str);
                        simple.str.simpleFunction();
                    }
                });
            }
        },
        error: (err) => {
            console.log('Error with view children');
        }  
      });
    }, 2000);
  }
}

simple.component.html

<p>{{str}}</p>

simple.component.ts

import { Component, Input } from '@angular/core';

@Component({
    selector: 'app-simple',
    templateUrl: './simple.component.html'
})
export class SimpleComponent {
    @Input() str: string = "";

    simpleFunction() {
        console.log('simpleFunction called for: ', this.str);
    }
}