The difference here is that Apple makes more money by using their own silicon regardless of whether or not they have a technical advantage.
Apple's systems may very well end up being slower. From a business standpoint, I am not sure that will matter.
Neither AMD nor Intel have shown much indication of catching up to Apple's (well, ARM's) mobile device battery life advantage. Apple doesn't sell systems that go in data centers, they don't need to smoke anything.
I agree. I don't think the broader Arm ecosystem is comparable to the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance of the Power era. Arm is ubiquitous in ways that Power never was. Even if Apple had to start buying chips from Qualcomm (yuck) they'd be okay.
This is definitely the key takeaway, here. Macs will always be a different kind of computer for a different class of consumer; people will either love them or hate them, regardless of processor speed or battery life. A Macbook is a Macbook, and if you want the benefits then you have to also live with the downsides.
Consumers already know this. They'll buy the new Mac even if it's worse (see: 2016), the new iPhone even if it's slower (see: 2022), and the new Magic Mouse even if it's still broken. It doesn't matter how fast or slow the Mac is, Apple has long proven that they exist in a market segment of their own, for better or worse.
Apple's systems may very well end up being slower. From a business standpoint, I am not sure that will matter.
Neither AMD nor Intel have shown much indication of catching up to Apple's (well, ARM's) mobile device battery life advantage. Apple doesn't sell systems that go in data centers, they don't need to smoke anything.