Every year we get some level of improvement to the phone. Year-to-year it might be relatively minor but it’s /always/ an improvement (less power usage, more cpu

Every year we get some level of improvement to the phone. Year-to-year it might be relatively minor but it’s /always/ an improvement (less power usage, more cpu power, more GPU power, more ml power, etc). These, sometimes, small improvements add up so that if you upgrade every 2-4 years they can cumulatively add up to a big improvement. People complain about Apple comparing the new iPhone (or MBP) to a 2-3 year ago model saying it’s just so they can say it’s 50%/100%/etc faster but for the vast majority of people that /is/ the model they are upgrading from. While us nerds might want to gauge the year-to-year gain the average consumer benefits more from it being compared to what they have (a 2-4 year old device). This method also lets people upgrade whenever they want (“on ramps” every year) vs having to wait X years for the next release or having to replace a broken phone with a N-2 year version because new phones only come out ever few years.