Apple was selling laptops with Thunderbolt before it used a USB-C connector and were among the first to sell them with Thunderbolt over USB-C.
They were, as far as I know, the first company to sell 27" monitors over Thunderbolt back in 2011.
So Apple has been all in on Thunderbolt for years, they just persisted with the Lightning connector on iPhones.
Phones mostly don't really make use of Thunderbolt bandwidth like laptops. They make use of the common charging standard of the USB-C connector.
I've never been a fan of the Lightning connector but given they've been making use of Thunderbolt on laptops before most vendors considered it, saying the market has moved on without them is silly.
The market moved to catch up with Apple.