*> When Tegra 3 tablets came out and "number of cores" became a thing, Apple...

> When Tegra 3 tablets came out and "number of cores" became a thing, Apple started counting everything they could as a core.

I think you picked the wrong example. The word "core" appears only once on this page, and it's in a different context. http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/

It also doesn't appear on the tech specs page. http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

I don't remember if my phone has two or four cores and I don't know how to find that out on Apple's website.