So it is not accurate to say Apple just learned how to make smartphones really fast, more that they effectively hacked the whole process with a number of Jedi mind tricks as well as key product decisions, all cemented by classic Steve Jobs dickery.
1. They cultivated us at Motorola shamelessly by pretending to make an "iTunes phone" (remember the Rockr?) while they were just pumping our teams for information on how the byzantine portfolio and terminal acceptance process at carriers worked. They never intended that phone to ship and used the whole sordid con to get into Ralph de le Vega's office (sorry, Ed Zander).
They then used all the persuasion and BS they had to convince AT&T to give Apple a pass on the incredibly complex field network testing all phones must pass. The reason the overall phone experience of the first iPhone was so bad was not just because Jobs and co wanted it to be a great music and Internet experience first, but because they couldn't make a great phone at all then.
I don't see the exact analogy with teh car industry. cars. The mobile phone business was laughably over-regulated and unlike the extremely competitive phone industry, wireless carriers were not really. And oh yeah, smartphones were terrible, and cars today, whether you like the way they look or not, are some of the most incredibly optimized products ever made by man: safe, reliable, efficient.
Cars just can't be disrupted via a Jesus phone coming in at the high end with innovative features. The Jesus car already exists (Tesla) and it has been extremely successful at influencing one of the biggest industries in the world in numerous ways. But if your goal, like Apple, is to not just influence but manufacture at scale, then Tesla has failed and it appears it will take any company, even Apple, decades to learn how to really make cars for more than a few.
I sure hope this isn't just abut cars as a service, because Apple has demonstrated it just can't do services, even when latched to a truly beautiful shiny object it has made.