> The M1 chip, which seems designed to run reference counted software written in Swift or Objective-C.

You'll have to explain why a dedicated hardware company wouldn't be able to come up with such a chip given sufficient competition. If many people use language X, then it makes sense for an IC design company to optimize for that language (unless there is a near-monopoly situation and they don't care about what the market wants).

> But there are plenty of other examples (ever wonder why no one seems to be able to replicate Apple's great trackpads?).

I'm afraid you'll have to provide some more context, because the connection between your argument and both hardware and software seems missing.