One thing that is different regarding cars is that car industry executives have the benefit of hindsight here. Apple was not a trillion dollar business in 2007, in 2022 everyone pays attention.
Apple's business model is clear; they would hoover up any profits that might arise via new in car software business models. Apple's success in reducing cellular carriers to dumb pipes will be the cautionary tale every car CEO in the world is familiar with.
Remember that when the iPhone came out, wireless carriers thought Motorola and Nokia and friends had too much power and they were looking at whether they could get white label phone manufacturers to make phones for them directly.
1990’s and 2000’s mobile in the US was a refugee camp for executives from the Bell Telephone breakup. They were a bunch of dirt bags trying to snap up everything they could, including re-patenting information technology by adding, “but without wires” to existing patents.
The RAZR phone was one of the first times they’d blinked in a while, and Apple showed up in the afterglow.
Apple's business model is clear; they would hoover up any profits that might arise via new in car software business models. Apple's success in reducing cellular carriers to dumb pipes will be the cautionary tale every car CEO in the world is familiar with.