Why would you be surprised? Apple's chip design team is the best in the entire industry, funded by a virtually infinite bankroll and with a razor focus on only developing chips for Apple's products; so microcode to drivers can be intimately optimized like a gaming console.

The access to iOS and macOS means that they can profile every single app everyone runs and improve real-world performance, and they do.

If you are a company that supplies anything (software or hardware) to Apple or Amazon, and you are operating on >20% gross margins, Apple and Amazon will destroy you, and destroy your margins. You have to continuously innovate and can't just relax and chill and collect your margins, like Intel has been doing for the past 5 years, milking their advantage that has evaporated.

Other than the modem, I don't think there's a component on the latest iPhones that has more than 20% margins for the supplier. Apple is ruthless. So is Amazon, when it comes to fulfilment.