Yes, but what technical aspect explains the difference, they’re both based on energy efficient arm technology. TDP for the cortex is lower I think? Is it the silicon size? Cortex is used in fanless phones.

The heat sink of a phone is the phone. Without a sink this thing has a tiny surface area. The heatink of a Mac is order of magnitude bigger as in: the laptop.

It's about manufacturing. Has nothing to do with arm.

Price difference is only about 50 times.

Price is a consequence, not a cause. If they make the price of the pi 50 times higher, it doesn't mean it no longer needs active cooling. I'm interested in knowing what the technical differences are that impact the cooling, and i understand these differences may come at different costs, and thus different prices. But seeing they're both low energy chips for mobile use cases, and both used for use cases where passive cooling is sufficient, i'm trying to understand why the pi needs active cooling.

For starters, the BCM2712 is manufactured on a 16nm process. The M2 is on a 5nm process.