You can wait for the AnandTech iPhone 7/A10 review, but the rough consensus is that it's around 40% faster than A9, and the A9 is about as fast as the fastest Snapdragons (http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-iphone-6s-and-i...).

> the parts on apple things are a bit older than the competition

Not sure where you got that impression, maybe you're thinking about Apple's laptops? Apple get the best and the latest from TSMC, which at the moment is 16nm finfet and next year expected to be 10nm finfet. Intel is the only company with a better process, and they don't make smartphone SoCs. And Apple has hired all the best Austin-based talent for their design team, poaching AMD and others heavily.