Don't you think its little hard to believe that a 500B publicly traded company doesn't have an R&D team? I think you should rethink your post. Just because Apple doesn't advertise their research division doesn't mean they don't have one.
Apple shuttered the Advanced Technology Group, its research division, as a part of Jobs' consolidation and refocusing in the late '90s, and, as I understand it, research as an activity separate from product development hasn't really been part of the corporate culture since then. This does not mean lots of product-focused R&D doesn't go on throughout Apple, of course.
As far as I know Apple Research department was closed by Steve Jobs at some point, around ten years back. And have not been reopened. I have not seen any Apple employees recently presenting at academic conferences or collaborating with other researchers. Nor have I seen any publications.
