I think it was AnandTech, but an analysis suggested that Apple's BOM price for the M1 (which of course excludes R&D costs, software dev costs, profit, it's just the raw manufacturing cost) to be about $64.

Sure, and AMD's is probably similar.

The difference being that Apple only sells theirs inside of $1000+ computers, and AMD has to make up the entire margin on their CPU alone.

Behold, the power of vertical integration.

The power of vertical integration means that Apple could sell their hardware at a loss, to get you inside the Walled Garden TM and then keep 30% of all you spend inside it.

I'm not saying they do that, considering how much their products cost, I'm saying they could. That's what vertical integration brings to their table, above all else.

Apple does the opposite by giving away their software and design “for free” and making up for it with hardware margins.

They give away their software but get a 30% on the software made by other companies and do their best not to let those companies get paid by other means than Apple's stores. I think this was the point of GP.

> "They give away their software but get a 30% on the software made by other companies"

Not on Mac they don't. macOS isn't tied to the App Store in the same way that iOS devices are, and it probably accounts for a tiny percentage of third-party Mac software sales by value.

It's also 4x the big cores and with way way way more L3 cache & I/O.

Almost like they are completely different CPUs with completely different design goals...