I don't own any Apple products (at least not nowadays), but they are really good at recognizing what upcoming tech has potential, buying it and then packaging it in a way that makes it appealing to consumers. They may not have invented many of the things they sell, but they definitely helped to popularize a ton of things that we take for granted now.

Smartphones are a good example. They existed before the iPhone (I remember the days of ye olden Palm Treo), but they weren't something the average person really cared about or wanted until the iPhone came around. Now, I won't go so far as to say that we wouldn't have smartphones like we do now without the iPhone as I think largely that it was just about the right time that smart phones were really becoming technically feasible, but Apple still deserves credit for being the ones who were there first with the pieces put together into a product that finally made people want one. Though I also remember the strange delusion they seemed to have had with the original iPhone pre-App Store that people would be OK with just HTML "apps", but that's a different tale.

which can basically be described as "a phone as a box with a touchscreen and no keyboard"

all they "make" is the box. they don't own the rights to any of the parts inside it (although they do have exclusive distribution rights for the versions of the components they put in the box)

OK they write their own firmware for those boxes. but none of that is actually that good. anyone using their latest kit knows their phones don't even work that good as a phone.

apple as a company won't survive past the last of Steve jobs patents expiring. which is no later than 2028.

You just have no idea what you're talking about.