Reading the audio signal from a smartphone
No. It partly depends on the phone, but most put out a low voltage AC signal. This would drive the Arduino inputs negative. You can do this by biassing the input at the mid point (+2.5V) and feeding audio in via a capacitor. There are many projects which use similar to record audio.

PS I would not recommend cutting a headphone cord. The wires are very fine, and almost impossible to solder. If you want to do this make a custom cable.