Apple Falls From 1st to 17th Spot in 'World's Most Innovative Company' Rankings

[MacRumors]

Fast Company today published its annual rankings of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, with Apple dropping from 2018's top spot to 17th place this year.

According to the rankings, the most innovative company for 2019 is Chinese tech firm Meituan Dianping, which "expedites the booking and delivery of services such as food, hotel stays, and movie tickets." In 2018, the platform facilitated $33.8 billion in transactions for more than 350 million people in 2,800 cities.

Other companies in the top five include Singapore-based ride-hailing company Grab, NBA, The Walt Disney Company, and women's fishing e-commerce service Stitch Fix. Square, Oatly, Twitch, Shopify, and Alibaba Group also filled positions higher than Apple, whose in-house processor achievements in 2018 were highlighted:

Apple's most impressive new product of 2018 wasn't a phone or a tablet, but a chip: the A12 Bionic. Debuting in last fall's iPhones, it's the industry's first processor based on a seven-nanometer manufacturing process. The A12's 6.9 billion transistors deliver dramatically faster performance, lower power consumption, and more raw muscle for intensive applications.

Last year Apple was given first place for its 2017 accomplishments, which included the iPhone X, the Apple Watch Series 3, ARKit, and its work to improve medical care with CareKit and ResearchKit. The year previous it was ranked the number four most valuable company.

To create these rankings, Fast Company says that more than three dozen editors, reporters, and contributors surveyed thousands of companies to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace their impact on businesses, industries, and the larger culture.

In addition to a master list, Fast Company publishes a breakdown of most innovative companies by sector. Apple topped the list in the "Consumer Electronics" category, beating out companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dell.

Article Link: Apple Falls From 1st to 17th Spot in 'World's Most Innovative Company' Rankings

 

[sequential]

Deservedly so.

 

[drumcat]

Surprised they were that high, actually.

 

[Heineken]

People don't know anymore what innovation even means. The word has been repeated so many times it has lost all meaning.

 

[drumcat]

People don't know anymore what innovation even means. The word has been repeated so many times it has lost all meaning.

Tell us, o wise beer.

 

[Keniutek]

No worries, few more animojis and watchbands and the top spot is theirs again...

 

[sunapple]

In addition to a master list, Fast Company publishes a breakdown of most innovative companies by sector. Apple topped the list in the "Consumer Electronics" category, beating out companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dell.

Which is probably the most important one.

 

[dazzer21-2]

So... what do we want to see Apple doing that can push it back to number one? Is it that "innovation" is getting harder to achieve, or have they just lost their touch? We've said that we don't want touch screens, as far as we know Apple haven't bothered with looking at bendable phones, the Mac range has been stagnating for longer than anyone here would have liked... but what should they wow us with next? All the fuss in re-assuring us that the new Mac Pro is coming and that it's going to be 'something else'... will it? I desperately hope so.

 

[johnalan]

These boards are so funny, everyone is so anti-Apple.

 

[radus]

Well this is statistics.

But I've bought every new iPhone until the last one - after testing Android with a Pocophone F1, it is now a Huawei Mate 20 Pro ( while I kept the iPhone X ... in case).
Reading the Huawei forum, I am not the only one who switched from the iPhone to Huawei.
The Man who bought my Pocophone F1 also switched from iOS to Android.

It seams the Android Community is much more innovative.
Especially the Chinese companies learned, copied and now they are innovate.

 

[rmoliv]

They innovate... in Animoji’s....

 

[episodex]

So revolutionary Night Sight and automatic answering by AI to telemarketer's calls were beaten by... "faster processor". Ok.

 

[DaveN]

These boards are so funny, everyone is so anti-Apple.

Yes and when you check their comment histories many of them appear to have joined just to flood the board just to bash anything Apple.

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

These boards are so funny, everyone is so anti-Apple.

People here are passionate about Apple. But yes, no one gives a **** about watch bands, animojis and phone cases.

 

[sunapple]

People here are passionate about Apple. But yes, no one gives a **** about watch bands, animojis and phone cases.

Well, this site does report on every single little thing, most of which you apparently don't care about. If you would just be checking general tech news from other websites, maybe you'd be happier.

 

[mindtpi99]

Fast Company today published its annual rankings of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, with Apple dropping from 2018's top spot to 17th place this year.

Apple, meanwhile, responded by announcing the release of 17 new banana emojis for the forthcoming iOS release....

 

[Slippery Gimp]

“Can’t innovate any more, my ass”.

Nope, it would seem.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Were Apple first in any of these lists, I couldn’t give two hoots. The only people who care about appearance of innovation are shallow, insecure customers and greedy investors, and I’m neither. What I want from companies products I use is good reliable design and good support. Apparent appearance of this overused term is way down the list of values I hold dear. Value for money is an order of magnitude more important to me, and in that I wouldn’t rate Apple number 1. True innovation is giving a crap about your customers more than profit. A fat folding phone has nothing to do with that.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Yes and when you check their comment histories many of them appear to have joined just to flood the board just to bash anything Apple.

I think many people just don't like the hypocrisy and contradictory nature of many Apple "fans". When Apple innovates (iPhone) they point out how "innovative" Apple is yet when Apple enters an established market (streaming service) all we hear from Apple fans is "Apple waits and does it right"; in other words copying something NOT innovating.

It seems Apple fans want "innovation" AND the ability to copy (but call it "doing it right").

In other words have their cake and eat it.

 

[Jsameds]

How did they miss Apple Watch 4's ECG? Also arguably the S4 processor in the AW4 is far more of a technological leap than the A12. So much so it makes the Apple Watch actually usable.

 

[polee]

Fast Company today published its annual rankings of the 50 most innovative companies in the world, with Apple dropping from 2018's top spot to 17th place this year.

According to the rankings, the most innovative company for 2019 is Chinese tech firm Meituan Dianping, which "expedites the booking and delivery of services such as food, hotel stays, and movie tickets." In 2018, the platform facilitated $33.8 billion transaction for more than 350 million people in 2,800 cities.

Other companies in the top five include Singapore-based ride-hailing company Grab, NBA, The Walt Disney Company, and women's fishing e-commerce service Stitch Fix. Square, Oatly, Twitch, Shopify, and Alibaba Group also filled positions higher than Apple, whose in-house processor achievements in 2018 were highlighted:
Last year Apple was given first place for its 2017 accomplishments, which included the iPhone X, the Apple Watch Series 3, ARKit, and its work to improve medical care with CareKit and ResearchKit. The year previous it was ranked the number four most valuable company.

To create these rankings, Fast Company says that more than three dozen editors, reporters, and contributors surveyed thousands of companies to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace their impact on businesses, industries, and the larger culture.

In addition to a master list, Fast Company publishes a breakdown of most innovative companies by sector. Apple topped the list in the "Consumer Electronics" category, beating out companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dell.

Article Link: Apple Falls From 1st to 17th Spot in 'World's Most Innovative Company' Rankings

Why am I not surprised by this price of news?

 

[antonis]

So revolutionary Night Sight and automatic answering by AI to telemarketer's calls were beaten by... "faster processor". Ok.

Heh my thoughts exactly. If people could only pay attention to what google is doing lately with AI (which is responsible for both night sight and automatic reply magic), they would be impressed...or even worried.

 

[pika2000]

People don't know anymore what innovation even means. The word has been repeated so many times it has lost all meaning.

"Innovation" means growth, thus many Chinese/Asian companies are flourishing thanks to their large markets.
Eg. Grab. Grab is hardly innovative in a sense of the services and technology they offer. They are just a copycat of Uber and Gojek. But Uber exited the SE Asian market, leaving Grab to be a/near monopoly in some of the markets (eg. It's a monopoly in Singapore). So voila, "innovation," as suddenly most Uber customers and drivers are forced to use Grab instead. Most drivers still admit that Uber has the better tech.

 

[Heineken]

"Innovation" means growth, thus many Chinese/Asian companies are flourishing thanks to their large markets.
Eg. Grab. Grab is hardly innovative in a sense of the services and technology they offer. They are just a copycat of Uber and Gojek. But Uber exited the SE Asian market, leaving Grab to be a/near monopoly in some of the markets (eg. It's a monopoly in Singapore). So voila, "innovation," as suddenly most Uber customers and drivers are forced to use Grab instead. Most drivers still admit that Uber has the better tech.

Uber was raided in china and basically forced out.

 

[unchecked]

So... what do we want to see Apple doing that can push it back to number one? Is it that "innovation" is getting harder to achieve, or have they just lost their touch? We've said that we don't want touch screens, as far as we know Apple haven't bothered with looking at bendable phones, the Mac range has been stagnating for longer than anyone here would have liked... but what should they wow us with next? All the fuss in re-assuring us that the new Mac Pro is coming and that it's going to be 'something else'... will it? I desperately hope so.

We can look at those above Apple and see what they did. They have in some way identified a need in their businesses and moved in and attempted to fill that need. Then you look at 2017 and why Apple got first place, with the Apple Watch 3 being a huge update to series 2 and the cramping of the tech into the notch of the iPhone X.

2018 was really meh year for Apple compared to the above, even by Apple's own 2017 standards. Apple didn't create a need the people didn't know they needed in 2018. Not sure what they could do have done to make 2018 better. Maybe if they had successfully pushed more of their products to the weaker economies or actually made them more affordable the way they wanted to but failed with the XR and 6th gen iPad.