Explained somewhat by the nature of the innovators dilemma and the products they're making:
- x86 chips for PC were Intel's cash cow so doing anything to disrupt that revenue stream would be fought against
- Apple's cash cow is the phone itself so they don't particularly have any dogmatic loyalty to one type of chip as long as the phone sells
Now if there were a technology to come up agains the iPhone (glasses anyone?) they'd probably face the same conundrum; disrupt themselves or be disrupted?
That was completely conventional and expected per the innovators dilemma - they moved to a higher margin product with more features. iPhone was innovative and impressive for many reasons but it did not short circuit innovators dilemma.
Now if there were a technology to come up agains the iPhone (glasses anyone?) they'd probably face the same conundrum; disrupt themselves or be disrupted?