Of course, Apple used to own a sizeable chunk of ARM.
But it doesn't make sense - Apple can't stop the existing licensees from stopping producing their chips, and the companies with architecture licenses will still be able to make new, compatible designs to sell to third parties. What it might do is stop innovation in the ARM ISA being made available to other companies, but that's a very long term thing; a new ISA takes many years to get to product silicon.
The whole ARM business model is based around sharing the costs of development (which are substantial) with a large group of companies. Could Apple really justify sustaining that cost to prevent competitors from using future ARM designs, when there are (albeit perhaps inferior) alternatives?
But it doesn't make sense - Apple can't stop the existing licensees from stopping producing their chips, and the companies with architecture licenses will still be able to make new, compatible designs to sell to third parties. What it might do is stop innovation in the ARM ISA being made available to other companies, but that's a very long term thing; a new ISA takes many years to get to product silicon.
The whole ARM business model is based around sharing the costs of development (which are substantial) with a large group of companies. Could Apple really justify sustaining that cost to prevent competitors from using future ARM designs, when there are (albeit perhaps inferior) alternatives?