Credit to you for taking input so well and for doing research but it's a bit more complicated than that.
Essentially there are two ways to license ARM intellectual property from ARM. The first way is to license an ARM design which is effectively a blueprint that will allow you to fabricate a chip that ARM designed down to the transistor level. This is what Apple did up until it released its first 64 bit SoC, it took ARM cores that had already been designed by ARM and incorporated them into its own Apple A4, A5 etc obviously adding some Apple specific bits as well (interfaces etc).
The other way to license however is what Apple does now which is an architecture license, i.e. Apple is allowed to implement the ARM instruction set in its SoCs but how it actually does that is entirely up to Apple's engineers. If they can find a much more efficient way to implement multiplication or division (as a very simplified example) than ARM has done in its reference design then they are free to do so.
The analogy is maybe like someone licensing a car. Apple's pre-64-bit license was a bit like licensing the blueprints of the car and going to a factory and say "I want you to make this car for me using these blueprints". Apple's current architecture license is more like getting a license from the car manufacturer that says "OK, as long as what you build looks exactly like my car to the observer (same body shape, colours etc) and to the driver (all the controls are in the same position and work the same way) then you can build and sell your version of this car. That then leaves the licensee to swap out the engine with a fusion reactor, make it go at 500mph, allow the cabin soundproofing to be completely silent, etc, etc. From the outside it's the same car but it is way more capable in terms of how it performs.
Some of the above is somewhat simplified but hopefully gives you an idea of where Apple leverages off ARM technology (ARM designed the instruction set) and where Apple adds value (better implementation). Lots of companies incorporate ARM technology by licensing ARM-designed cores. Very few companies have the in-house chip design expertise and resources to redesign all the internals to make a better ARM core than ARM does.
