I think your friend spoke a kernel of truth while misunderstanding what Apple do well. It's pretty rare that they come out with something that hasn't been done at small scale previously, but they have insane scale (100s of millions of iPhones sold per model), and a well-developed ability to take cutting edge techniques, as well as some tech that is in development but not ready for prime time, and integrate it and release it in products a year before anyone else can tool up to compete.