Apple uses the ARM ISA. It doesn't use ARM IP - as in, the design of the chip. Apple designed their own damn chip!
Since they're not branding it as ARM in any way, shape, or form, and they have a perpetual architectural license to the ISA, I suspect they could do pretty much what they please - as long as they don't call it ARM. Which they don't.
I doubt that will be true going forward. They first used the “Apple Silicon” branding for the Mac and yesterday they used the branding for the Watch and iPad (?)
