Apple named the world’s most innovative company

Fast Company has named Apple the world’s most innovative company, highlighting the 2017 product and software line-up to be a hit since the iPad in 2010.

In the “World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2018” list from Fast Company, ranking at the top position is Apple, followed by Netflix in second place, Square in third, Tencent in fourth, and Amazon in fifth. While this year’s list ranks Apple at the top and Amazon at fifth, last year’s list placed the iPhone-maker at fourth position and Amazon at the top.

Fast Company praises Apple’s 2017 line-up, including Apple Watch Series 3, AirPods, ARKit, and iPhone X. It goes on writing about Apple’s hardware-software engineering efforts that make iPhone X (and other Apple devices) faster than the competition from rival companies.

For a company slagged for not having had a hit since the iPad in 2010, Apple had a notable 2017: Its wireless AirPods became ubiquitous around the country; the Apple Watch Series 3 is a bestseller; developers embraced ARKit, its AR framework; and even skeptics were blown away by the iPhone X.

Fast Company also criticizes the fact that Android smartphone makers use a common chip whereas Apple makes its own chip for use in iOS devices, which makes it optimized for particular hardware and software integration.

Despite competition from companies like Google and Amazon, Apple “has made major inroads” in the field of AI, with its privacy-centric approach to the same. Fast Company notes how Apple performs most of the AI operations on-device, instead of parsing data to the server farm.

For instance, it uses AI techniques to wring as much life as possible out of the iPhone’s battery. Because of Apple’s privacy-driven decision to limit the amount of information it aggregates and analyzes in the cloud, it also does much of its AI right on the devices rather than using massive server farms.

Google, Microsoft and Samsung couldn’t make it to the top 50 on Fast Company‘s “World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2018” list.