Apple gross revenue is 10x the Qualcomm, and the difference in net income is even larger. Apple could easily afford these R&D costs. Another obstacle, even if

Apple gross revenue is 10x the Qualcomm, and the difference in net income is even larger. Apple could easily afford these R&D costs. Another obstacle, even if Qualcomm develops an awesome emulator / JIT compiler / translation layer, I’m not sure the company is in the position to ship that thing to market. Unlike Apple, Qualcomm doesn’t own the OS. Such emulator would require extensive support in the Android OS. I’m not sure Google will be happy supporting huge piece of complicated third-party software as a part of their OS. P.S. And also there’re phone vendors who actually buy chips from Qualcomm. They don’t want end users to complain that their favorite “The Legendary Cabbage: Ultimate Loot Garden Saga” is lagging on their phone, while working great on a similar ARM-based Samsung.