There were two good paths to take, but one depended in Intel and they never provided it.
Edit: Like they had been using ARM since before Intel released the original Pentium.
Inthink if Intel came out with a compelling product, Apple would have switched. I suspect they invested in ARM because it made sense at the iPod level, but once you start converging mobile and desktop experiences, there are major benefits to having the same architecture for both. Just look at how rampant the ARM MacBook rumors have been for the last few years.
I think the ARM investment by Apple was good regardless of whether they wanted to switch to Intel for higher end mobile, so I don't see it as evidence as to why they didn't want to.
Nobody was waiting for Intel to get into the cellphone market. The TDP of Intel chips just never made sense, and it was clear that this was because they just didn't institutionally care about that market segment in a real way.
Maybe pundits were waiting, but nobody serious.
Edit: and all these ARM desktop rumors are just that, rumors. They have the ability to ship a competive low to mid end laptop on their own arm chips today, and aren't. Their wide OoO designs would run beautifully in a formfactor that isn't thermally throttled so much. IMO they don't want to switch ISAs and are waiting out the x86_64 patents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
...I'm not sure it was before the Pentium though, because it appears they both came out in 1993.
This is such an understatement. From Wikipedia: The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and VLSI Technology.
Apple is a cofounder of ARM.
It was Steve's idea that Intel had the best chip and Fab, and he wanted the best in iPhone. He was willing to wait for Intel to give him what he demands, the price he asked for was way lower than Intel's usual margin but very high for Apple's BOM Cost.
Ultimately one of this Top Engineers put his name badge on the table and said if Steve insist on Intel he will quit. Steve Jobs ultimately backed off. They than bought P.A. Semi and the rest is history.
Intel's failure to capture the iPhone SoC opportunity was described by Paul Otellini, Intel CEO at the time as the biggest missed opportunity / failure of his life. ( And I am still quite pissed they forced out Pat Gelsinger )
If Steve had persisted he would have repeated the same Apple Lisa mistake. And the world might not be quite the same.
*Makes me rather sentimental while typing this. I miss Steve Jobs.
Still not seeing how Samsung followed Apple in SoC design when Apple started by using Samsung SoCs.
Kind of a weird way to phrase it given that iPhone 1 through 3GS ran on Samsung SoCs. It wasn't until the iPhone 4 that Apple used their own SoCs. Not sure how Samsung could be following suit in that case.
Edit: also, Apple was never going to wait around for Intel. Apple is actually one of the early investors in ARM, back in the early ninties, had used ARM.in the whole iPod line (as well as the ill fated Newton), and iPhones lined up with ARMs in mobile TDPs starting to have full MMUs.