I think what Apple excels at is providing a set of software development tools, a platform, and an audience, for third-party developers to then use to build innovative products, the best of which either become platforms of their own if they're lucky (e.g., Adobe suite), or are copied by Apple and made part of their operating systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)).
While Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, Lightroom, Premiere, and PowerPoint are all examples of software developed and released first for the Mac that then went on to become software behemoths in their own right (too big to Sherlock). (Well Sketch turned out differently, because Figma happened, but it's still a great example of third-party innovation facilitated by "a set of software development tools, a platform, and an audience".)
The point here being I think of Apple as more providing a platform for innovation rather than innovating themselves (but I'm aware that's probably a minority opinion).
In addition to Watson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelia_Watson), there's also Cover Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Flow), Shortcuts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortcuts_(Apple)), Konfabulator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_Widgets), Growl (https://growl.github.io/growl/), and of course my favorite LaunchBar (https://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index.html, LaunchBar would be my pick as the most innovative app of the last 25 years), for apps that were incorporated into macOS.
While Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, Lightroom, Premiere, and PowerPoint are all examples of software developed and released first for the Mac that then went on to become software behemoths in their own right (too big to Sherlock). (Well Sketch turned out differently, because Figma happened, but it's still a great example of third-party innovation facilitated by "a set of software development tools, a platform, and an audience".)
The point here being I think of Apple as more providing a platform for innovation rather than innovating themselves (but I'm aware that's probably a minority opinion).