I didn't say it's not valid, or that it shouldn't have been done. I'm just saying "NN still doesn't help them beat iPhone" is not a relevant comment regarding this test. To go with car analogy it's close to an article about an slightly improved design of one part of fuel injection in new ABC and someone commenting "look, an XYZ from last year still can go faster without it".

The test is a valid observation, but is irrelevant to this article, or to the technology.

Why measure something that doesn't show up in a standard user's test? Here are some examples: lower power usage, lower latency of small operations (rather than throughput of large actions), smaller design (saving chip space), etc. And finally - if this is a good technology, Apple can use it too and get even faster.