>They somehow convinced people low power consumption on CPU mattered.

As an ARM processor enthusiast since the 90's, it's all I care about.

I'm not convinced it will ever stop being important.

Battery life in mobile products doesn't matter now?

I think for a while it was because they had a superior user experience that would compound with the more Apple products you acquired.

That, combined with sleek marketing and a good eye for product design, and building what was the best smartphone by far (IMO) in the world at the time it was first released, snowballed into Apple becoming the behomoth it is today.

Remember (not that long ago) when Apple was years ahead of ARM on performance, had vastly better support windows for their hardware and vastly better UI and UX? It is just that today Android has mostly caught up if not surpassed on a phone basis, but e.g. we still see a better ecosystem of iPhone + Watch with Apple, as well as between users.