Because like every revolutionary (at the time) product, what was once new and amazing (smart phones) eventually becomes a commodity.
I can remember when my IIGS was something sorta special. When pushing computers to their performance limits was really cool because few people had done it, it was amazing to make it do more, and you were excited about what came next. It was worth paying thousands of dollars for something you would have for 5 plus years. With the drives, the monitor and the printer, the darn thing cost more than a used car at the time.
I bought a new MBP last June. It' has a lot of cool new features over my 2019 MBP and I like the unit. But I bought it primarily because the keyboard on the old one was crap and I type a lot of reports. It's a great computer and it's worth every penny I paid for it.
But computers are basically everywhere now. Including in your pocket. There's nothing special about them anymore.
So when your iPhone is basically commoditized on the level of being a toaster or a fridge, you end up making toaster ovens, multi slice toasters, and fridges with computer screens and WiFi in them. Or in this case, changing the buttons around on a phone to try and do something "new".
It's not that they're making it "better". That's subjective. But they're not going to sit there and put out the same phone two years in a row when they've been putting out new ones for 14 years now.
If you're gonna do that, you may as well go off and make dorm refrigerators.
