[lumost]

I haven't worked at apple, but I suspect that this is the result of only having <20 core products (including services such as the app store). This generally implies that there are a very small number of internal employees who built those core products, and in most organizations this leads to a resistance to change.

Some companies like to spam new products, others like to perfect what they have.

[judge2020]

Apple spent ~22B in R&D in 2021, but they definitely have large-scale decision makers expecting near-perfection on anything considered for released, probably before they even push it to DVT.

[lumost]

Resistance to change has an odd correlation with R&D spending. A company that refuses to change their products may spend more on R&D than one changing products all the time, as the cost of each change is much higher.

[dekhn]

R&D spending at FAAMG includes all software development work, regardless of whether it's research.

[nickelcitymario]

I'm not sure if you're saying it's a bad thing that they have <20 core products? I've always considered that a strength and a remarkable show of discipline, especially when they're willing to kill perfectly good products in order to create imperfectly great ones.