Apple has ranked fourth in Fast Company's annual list of The Most Innovative Companies of 2017 published today, moving up three spots from its seventh-place finish in 2016. Apple trailed behind Amazon, Google, and Uber, and directly ahead of Snapchat, Facebook, and Netflix in the list of 50 companies.

a10
The publication credited Apple for designing four of its own chips last year, which allows it to "control its own destiny" and create "the most compelling consumer-electronics experiences," including the A10 Fusion chip in iPhone 7, W1 chip in AirPods, T1 chip in the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and S2 chip in the Apple Watch Series 2.

"We pick the projects where we feel like we can make a difference—the big customer-impacting features," says Anand Shimpi, who works on hardware technologies at Apple. So the stunning depth-of-field effect from the iPhone 7 camera? That’s directly enabled by the new A10 chip. "The actual production of the stored portrait image is because of things that we put into the [image signal processor]," Shimpi says.

Each chip has resulted in technological breakthroughs for Apple. The W1 chip in AirPods, for example, is programmed to automatically route the audio to each earphone, and engage the microphone, while its low power usage results in industry-leading battery life up to five hours on a single charge.

The S2 chip in Apple Watch Series 2 models results in performance improvements without sacrificing battery life, and the four-core A10 Fusion chip in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus is up to two times faster than the A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and delivers the longest battery life—up to two hours longer—of any iPhone ever.

Top Rated Comments

fox10078 Avatar
113 months ago
I can already hear the heads exploding around here.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bladerunner2000 Avatar
113 months ago
Unreliable source considering their top 50 doesn't include Tesla, which belongs in the top 3 spot.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
113 months ago
In their defense, Taco Bell did combine corn, beans, meat and cheese into genius...
Not only that, they flipped the script and put the chicken... wait for it... on the mutha@#$%^&* outside. <mind blown>
I give you, in all it's glory, the Naked Chicken Chicken Chalupa.o_O


Can't innovate my ass!! Which is ironic since, if I eat this, that's where a lot of "innovation" will take place.:p:D
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bladerunner2000 Avatar
113 months ago
Maybe they're waiting for Tesla to make a profit first.
What does that have to do with innovation?

You have to look in the right category though. Tesla isn't a 'consumer electronics device'
The list is called "World's Most Innovative Companies". My point still stands.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WinstonRumfoord Avatar
113 months ago
You say Apple can't innovate? Let me see you send an apple watch emoji with fireworks backgrounds on your low tech android phone. That's what I thought...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MH01 Avatar
113 months ago
It's February 2017 . Probably a good time to name the most innovative companies in 2016.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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