Apple's ARM license may be an artifact of the shared history of the two companies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings#Founding https://en.m.wikipedia

Apple's ARM license may be an artifact of the shared history of the two companies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings#Founding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings#Founding Development of the Newton handheld PDA led Apple to seek a capable, efficient, embedded processor architecture. They worked with Acorn and VLSI Technologies to build upon Acorn's RISC design. (Apple initially used the "Hobbit" embedded microcontroller from AT&T, but Newton's ambitious design required three of them, plus support chips. Development costs escalated, Apple sought an alternative, and helped develop ARM into a licensed, flexible reality.)