>Only Apple can sell you a brand-new phone with last year’s chip and still convince you that you made a deal. I admit that the A16 is still at the top of the chips but you get the point.

1. You must have not realized that AMD does the same thing. They cover it up better because they rebadge it under a different sku, but it's still "last year's" microarchiecture and lithography process

2. Reusing last year's chip as a lower end model makes a lot of sense. For one, you don't have to design separate chips for mid/high end. As long as it performs well, who cares when it's from? I'd much rather have a 2 year old iphone CPU than next year's midrange snapdragon, for instance.