Yep. We have these in our team too. People who came in the regular way, were absolutely top performers, and then decided to relocate. The decision to the company was let them be remote or let them go, and some were allowed to be remote and some were shown the door.
This comment should definitely be emphasized as the golden path to be working remote for a company like Apple. Once you prove your worth as a top performer, you might be able to flex remote working, or maybe remote working on a temporary basis, but to demand it upfront without proving yourself is not something a company like Apple bends to.
I have only seen one person in my org successfully get to work remote in my org, he even got to keep his Cupertino comp for the period of time he worked remote - he had to come back to Cupertino within two years though or he would get let go. Otherwise, I have seen top performers get to work remote anywhere they wanted for a period of time as long as they got their work done (the longest I have heard of someone doing so is one month working from Asia and not in an office). I've done it myself for 3 weeks.
Being a top performer is a lot of hard work though, and you do end up sacrificing work-life balance to some degree, but Apple treats their top performers very well.
Edit: I take that back, I did once have a teammate in a remote office in Europe who only goes into the office there once a week. He does good work though and knows his stuff, and the more remote offices probably have a little more flexibility in some regards due to having to keep to Cupertino hours.
