Apple engineering
Good folks at Blind, I greet you with all my heart. Now that the formalities are out the door, let's talk some serious biz. How good of an engineering company is Apple for a software engineer ? Let's compare it to the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Uber, Google, Microsoft. (Rank them if you feel so) Please use the following factors to give your decision: quality of engineers, quality of work, promotion velocity, internal tools, work life balance. With just iPhones in its main arsenal, how long do you think Apple will continue to be as valuable as it is right now ! (Accounting for inflation.)
Apple is a hardware company. This says enough about what it means to be a software engineer here. Unless they start to treat software products seriously, it will be like MS in the era of Ballmer, who was obsessed by Windows and didn't give a shit about everything else.
Regarding your last comment, believe me on this, Apple works on EVERYTHING (meaning every single technology or trend you hear about any other company or startup, there is a team doing that at Apple), they just don't release it until both the product is perfect for mass market, and major profit margins can be maintained.
Agree with this based on my friends who work there, although I don't know the details since we keep shop work separate from personal interactions. Now an answer to OP's question: everyone's ranking is going to be different based on criteria used. Mine doesn't include work-life balance since it is last on my criteria. I cannot comment on your factors of internal tools since one has to work there to know it. I can however comment on your other factors based on impressions created over the years. I rank Apple as very high on quality of engineers and quality of work.
This is especially true for Apple Maps and alike, right ? :D