There's no reason to think that Apple would have any more skill at making a frontier AI model as they do at making airplanes or growing soybeans. Not much overlap between consumer electronics design and expertise, data, training, and datacenters needed for AI.

I feel like this ignores how big of a part the software is for those "consumer electronics" Apple is so good at making.

Apple definitely has software expertise, maybe it's not as specialized into AI as it is about optimizing video or music editors, but to suggest they'd be at the same starting point as an agriculture endeavor feels dishonest.