The issue here is that the Apple M1 and M2 hardware, while built around one of the ARM64 ISA versions, are not really ARM processors.
Apple, as an Architecture License holder, takes ARM designs, and builds their own processor around them. This means that they can add whole groups of instructions and other features that they then use in their products. It's going to be an Apple EEE policy.
I suspect that the stellar performance of the M1 and M2 processors is as a result of some of these changes. This means that building Linux for ARM and M* processors, you have a choice to either embrace the changes and get good performance at the expense of effictively having a single supplier lock-in, or keep to the core standard, and potentially lose out and only get mediocre performance.
The ARM environment is fragmenting too much. I think that RiscV is likely to look increasingly more attractive as an alternative architecture for many people.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
