I would not be surprised if iPadOS 15 ships with virtualization support, since the M1 has ARM EL2. If that is the case and Apple allows iSH to use it, then it probably would make sense to add ARM support to iSH for extra performance.

They could pick something easier to emulate perhaps, but x86 has benefits from a compatibility standpoint.

Maybe one day there would be a benefit of targetting WASM with a natively implemented syscall api?

If tablets are going to replace laptops for consumers in the long term, Apple would prefer that those tablets be iPads. If that shift means the iPad eats the Mac, so be it.

This already worked for them once - the iPhone cannibalized the (then-very profitable) iPod business with Apple’s explicit support, and now the company’s worth a trillion dollars.