Apple is very good at what they do. They will move mountains and invent new technologies to achieve their goals. But the goal is not the technology itself -- it's the experience.

People complained Macs had underpowered hardware. That's because Apple didn't need overpowered hardware to achieve the experience they wanted. Same for iPhone, and how it still has less memory than Android flagships -- by as much as half in some cases, or even more. But they simply don't need more for the experience. (Though recently they have felt the RAMpocalypse)

I believe the same will happen here, and everywhere. Apple will not release a frontier model just because they can. They won't pull ahead just for the sake of it. But there is a high likelihood that they will create much a better experience, that doesn't need a model to be at the frontier.

Of course, they also make considerably powerful machines now. Pushing your hardware to the limit is a significant experience these days, and Apple sees the market for it. Even if they do not create the next frontier model themselves, we may eventually find one running on Apple hardware anyway.

I also think that it is not just user experience, but developer experience that stands to benefit. Apple's developer experience has been rotting since Jobs died, but I still hold out hope that they will pull through. Call me foolish for that, though, if you must.