There was a time when Apple decided throwing random technical numbers shouldn't be the news (those were following the times of Megahertz counting). These times have been changing post Steve Jobs. This said, it is a chip announcement rather than a product announcement, so maybe that is the news.
They also lost big during the megahertz wars. Consumers made it clear that they wanted to see number go up and voted with their wallet. There is probably still some cultural remnant of that era.
