I honestly think Apple was interesting because of Steve Jobs.

Whatever you think of him he was clearly an strong leader who was able to make a bunch of otherwise unruly geniuses cooperate towards a common goal. He also overruled any other ego in the hierarchy so the goals that were worked on actually shipped.

This is rare, and made Apple different from other corporations, for a while.

Without a person like that at the top, corporations are money-making machines that will gravitate towards bland and predictable. Egos will battle for resources for no purpose other than being the boss of the most resources, geniuses will be increasingly bored and disillusioned and whatever special sauce there was will go stale.

Corporations can exist in that state for a long time and sometimes still make nice products of course.