I think people’s aren’t seeing the big picture is that it used to be, even going back to the minicomputer age with DEC that price/performance for mainstream platforms improved over time. It still does for Apple’s M-series processors but the rest of the industry is stuck which is why a PS6 looks impossible now.
X86 is going the way of the VAX but Microsoft and Qualcomm have failed the ARM transition so many times that it seems they just can’t do it, even if Apple doesn’t want to be the budget laptop king it might win at it by default.
AFAICT the performance/watt delta between the M1 and contemporary x86 processors was larger than the delta between the M4 and its contemporaries like Strix Halo, Panther Lake and latest Snapdragon.
X86 is going the way of the VAX but Microsoft and Qualcomm have failed the ARM transition so many times that it seems they just can’t do it, even if Apple doesn’t want to be the budget laptop king it might win at it by default.