I think you're talking about Apple's Star Trek Project ("To boldly go where no Mac has gone before.").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_project

> For one thing a company like Sun Microsystems or Apple that specializes in making computers that are much more expensive than PCs would not want people to get anywhere near the PC clone ecosystem where you can pay less and get a lot more.

Except in the 1990s Apple did permit PowerPC-based Mac clones to proliferate, until Jobs returned and cancelled all the contracts.

A wild time.