The Design Museum in London has pretty much everything Jony Ive ever designed in their permanent collection.
They certainly are art in this context.*
And I'd argue that Apple are one of the few tech companies that genuinely view their products as art objects, as well as being boxes of mass-produced consumer technology.
* There's a wider question about whether the mere act of displaying something in a gallery makes it art, but its one that many fine art postgrads haven't been able to get to the bottom of yet :)
I would argue that the fact it's in a design museum rather than an art museum makes it design in that context.
Speaking very broadly:
Designers manifest other people's ideas for money.
Art is more when you bring your own ideas into the world because you want to.
it is though. steve jobs treated it and designed it as functional art. unlike most other manufacturers. he did borrow/utilize many ideas from german artists and industrial designers (bauhaus/german modernism/braun design etc.).
so like it or not i would say that iphone is a piece of art that others loved and copied. (which is good and completely natural).
