Facts are facts, you're clearly an Apple fanboy the way you're responding. There were large screen Android phones that were running 60fps in Geekbench before Apple, so clearly the GPU performance and density existed and was shipping.
Apple actively advertised (real print ad campaigns) AGAINST large screen phones, they said they were un-ergonomic and too large of a form factor to hold and use single handed. The company had a real psychological opposition resisting large screen phones and gave non-technical justifications for their opposition.
Simultaneously, Steve Jobs attacked mini-tablets, claiming "7″ tablets should come with sandpaper, so users can file down their fingers"
So let's just be clear here: Apple creates a PR narrative that something sucks unless they do it, even if that thing categorically sucks (non-one-handed-use-phones, mini tablets). Specs don't matter when Apple devices consistently had inferior performance, and now that Apple Silicon leads, of course specs are front and center.
What's happened is, after they ship, they ret-con the reasons why it took so long, in order to provide an excuse that they had misjudged the market, that Steve Jobs had been wrong in his intuition about big phones and small tablets.