Although Apple is one of the founder companies behind ARM Holdings and uses technology from the British company in all of its mobile devices, Apple was never mentioned as one of its Public Licensees of the company on the ARM website.

But Apple seems to be ready to step out of the limelight and publicly acknowledge that it is the mystery licensee that ARM signed three years ago, before the launch of the original iPhone.

Check the picture below, extracted from the video of Steve Jobs at the iPad 2 launch event yesterday. Check the three letters at the top of the processor, ARM (ed : Apple might say that the Acronym stands for something completely different though).

Although it might not sound like it, Apple putting ARM's name on the A5 is a very powerful statement by the company about its relationship with the company.

With the real possibility that Apple will launch more than one A5 processor this year and potentially dump Intel altogether in the next few years, ARM's strategic partnership with Apple may become pivotal to the company's continued success (ed : remember the rumours that Apple might buy ARM for $8 billion?)