I think a lot of people who watch these things suspect exactly what you wrote at the least. Apple funds much of TSMC’s research and development for a new node,

I think a lot of people who watch these things suspect exactly what you wrote at the least. Apple funds much of TSMC’s research and development for a new node, pays for production for use in iPhones, both sides make tons of money and repeat the cycle on a new node and other companies come in and buy up capacity on that cutting edge node, seemingly comfortably coasting behind apple. I guess now Apple may use some capacity themselves for their mac cpus after the newest iDevices prove the tech.