As far as I can tell, Apple hasn't made any efforts to future proof their products. The 5s got 1gb of ram, which will be its bottleneck. The iPad air did the same (I assume/think) and only has the A7, even if it is a higher clocked version. Apple also withheld the fingerprint reader, 8mp camera, and any actually new features. The iPod touch was one year behind when it came out and two the next year. Their best efforts are in the iPad mini, which while being in the same boat as the Air, at least got to skip the A6X. However that cost us $70. I agree 100% with the title of this thread and I cannot understand why Apple can't put everything into their products each year, and then again the next, rather than holding out on certain features. Maybe they should do the same thing as with their laptops and have a higher end version with double the ram and a better camera and one premium feature.