I had an LG phone that was one of the first in 4G (at least on my carrier) and the thing ran so hot it was often painful to touch.
My HTC thunderbolt was one of the first “4G” phones, but was barely useable more than a few hours.
Yes, Apple has made some insane design constraints in the past (butterfly keyboards, the whole thin-ness thing), but their chip choices are usually pretty sound and grounded in reality.
*edit: I wanted to throw in how frustrating the lack of push email was for so long (and still kind of is), but I get it. From their standpoint, they control APNS & can use that for energy efficiency benefits to make a grandma-friendly device
From my memory Apple is just often late to the party. Especially for 4G and LTE.