This is not the first time this has happened in Apple’s history. The transition from the 68k architecture to the PowerPC brought major performance improvements, but Apple’s software didn’t take full advantage of it. If I remember correctly, even after the PowerPC switch, core elements of the classic Mac OS still ran in emulation as late as Mac OS 9. Additionally, the classic Mac OS lacked protected memory and preemptive multitasking, leading to relatively frequent crashes. Taligent and Copland were attempts to address these issues, but they both faced development hell, culminating with the purchase of NeXT and the development of Mac OS X. But by the time Mac OS X was released, PowerPC was becoming less competitive than the x86, culminating with the Intel switch in 2006. At this point it was Apple’s software that distinguished Macs from the competition, which remained the case until the M1 Macs were released five years ago.