To say that Apple gains nothing by licensing and developing their own ARM chips is disingenuous. They make some of the best, if not the best, ARM processors for mobile/general purpose systems. Consistently great battery life and performance packages, compared to competing ARM packages. After all, iOS is specifically tuned for A*-chips, and vice versa.

By continuing to develop their own chips based on existing ARM specs, they can take advantage of the rising tide while maintaining the freedom to make changes as they want, without waiting on the industry to deliver. I doubt that Apple has that sort of influence, if any at all, over the architectural minutiae of Intel chips. It seems more likely they just take the latest of whatever Intel dishes out, like virtually everyone else.

ARM may never fully compete with Intel processors, but if it ever does, Apple will be in a great position to own its entire processor lineup. That amount of top-to-bottom control costs money, but it gives them a greater position in the market. It doesn't sound crazy at all to me to imagine Apple continuing to blur the lines between their ARM and Intel systems, to the point at which maintaining separate architectures no longer makes sense.