>>106555503
The role of optimization is overstated. What truly allows apple to have a dominant position is being TSMC's most important customer, which allows it access to cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication technology at whatever volume they want, while other tech companies have to fight over the production capacity left over by Apple. When AMD had very competitive mobile CPU offerings, they were barely in the market, because they simply do not have the resources to be allocated enough wafers by TSMC.
Another thing is that Apple makes a gorillion dollars from the iPhone, which allows them limitless R&D into SoC designs.
