I am a big RISC-V fan and often write how it will eventually push ARM down but let me do the opposite here.
Apple Silicon uses the ARM ISA but Apple designs the chips themselves and TSMC makes them. This makes it a very different situation from PowerPC.
TSMC offers more advanced manufacturing than Intel does. This is not changing anytime soon. From that perspective, Intel looks to be more in the PowerPC seat this time around. Their recent troubles are going to hang a serious anchor on their R&D. It is not at all clear what their future looks like.
Add to this the timing of Intel stumbling just as the Qualcomm X Elite chips enter the market and we have a very interesting competitive moment. Power and battery life matter a lot these days. Will it matter enough to counter speed bumps in app compatibility? We will see.
Independent of Apple, ARM may become viable in the Windows space and that would be entirely new. If it does not happen, it does not really hurt Apple. However, if ARM does take a cut of the Windows market, it does hurt Intel and puts them more into the place PowerPC was historically. If X Elite ( ARM ) does not fail on Windows, it will probably become the preferred option on laptops. If that happens, maybe it reduces Apple market share as well but not enough to push Apple off their own silicon.
As long as Apple sells enough volume, they can continue to design their own chips. It does not even matter how well ARM themselves are doing. If Apple continues to be good at it, there is no reason to switch.
So, while it sounds like you and I may agree about RISC-V vs ARM, remember that Apple does not buy their chips off of ARM. Apple gets its chips from TSMC and, far from being “old tech”, they are buying manufacturing process superior to anything Intel has access to. Also, Apple’s market is not just laptops and desktops. They are using Apple Silicon in all those iPhones and iPads at volumes that dwarf the PC side.
The reason that Apple moved away from PowerPC ( and Motorola before that ), was because of the economics. With only 15% of the PC market, Apple was the primary driver of PowerPC and had to fund all its innovation ( including manufacturing ). Now, they have control of the design and use it to serve much higher volumes while TSMC ( biggest in the world ) drives the manufacturing at the forefront of the industry. Most importantly, Apple is not really impacted at all by the success of the rest of the ARM space. If ARM fails, it does not really hurt Apple. If ARM is very successful, maybe it helps Apple a bit with more software available, especially on alternative OS like Linux. But alternative OS options for Apple hardware are a mixed blessing for them anyway.