They had expertise in portable electronics, small form factor high performance computing devices, dealing with the music industry, etc. In contrast, the ability to support voice calls and the ability to negotiate with phone companies are very closely related to things Apple had already done, already had expertise in, or could easily tackle.

As for the applications and services you list below, all of these pale in comparison to payments. Even cloud storage is a completely different beast than payments. Also, all of these things are value-add propositions which help sell Apple's extremely high markup other products.

Again, payments are a whole different ballgame. Payments are not about aesthetics or design or UI excellence, they're about robustness, reliability, fraud reduction, low overhead, and regulatory compliance.

Also, the idea that Apple could roll out a high-markup (10%) payments system and have it succeed in the marketplace is sheer and utter fantasy. Paypal is relatively cost competitive with merchant accounts precisely because cost of payments is the name of the game, every 1% matters when you're a business.

They didn't have experience in telephones, but they did have experience in building desirable hardware. And especially in pocketable devices. A phone was the natural evolution of the iPod.

All the examples of unsexy products you cited kind of suck. Apple does do boring stuff, but they arent very good at it.