Because, love it or lump it, Intel's manufacturing process is ludicrously advanced. Power hungry, particularly when they're locked on older nodes, but extremely capable when their interests align. Pat Gelsinger has even stated that it's his goal to get Apple back as an Intel customer. Their foundry services started working with ARM to get RISC cores manufactured, and if they stick to their roadmap, it's possible for them to leapfrog TSMC's density limitations.
We'll have to see where things go, but I do agree with the parent. Apple's lead was their investment on the TSMC 5nm node, which as-of the M2 is clearly difficult to iterate on. Apple needs advancements in density to make a faster chip - Intel does not.
> Apple's lead was their investment on the TSMC 5nm node
That's only part of the deal. Apple also made some really cool architectural innovations, as well as creating workload-oriented ISA extensions that proved extremely effective.
honest question: why do you think that?
My believe is that a good analogy for such leads would be an average marathon runner vs Kipchoge. His "lead" will only increase with time.