It may not be innovative, but it's something good that makes Apple consistently leapfrog everyone else on everything else than raw processing power and value. I mean, who else would have done this? Dell? Nope.

Apple is actually pretty awesome like this.

Exactly. Apple tries to do a lot of firsts when they release a new product category, but most of their updates are about putting the effort into the smallest details that matter to users, even if the users don't know about it.

They are better than anyone else at that simply because nobody else really sees the whole product as their own problem. I.e. each hardware/software/service maker is just optimizing their part.

My favorite example of this: a MacBook's headphone socket has full support for iPhone earbuds. The little headset microphone is used and the volume/pause buttons operate exactly as on an iPhone.

Obvious in retrospect, but just another example of how Apple treats their product range as a complete ecosystem.

I think the issue is less that only Apple is capable of making these technological leaps, and more that only Apple is capable of pushing them to a wider audience.

Few companies can get away with such a relatively narrow selection of hardware products. Dell for example has dozens of laptop models. By only having a few models, Apple making a big change to one results in a big chunk of the overall market including that feature.

I would argue that producing the first 5k display that will be purchased by the 'masses' is the real innovation here.

I'm not sure. Why doesn't everyone produce them? The PC industry could drive a lot more innovation because there's so many more Windows PCs. Unfortunately, the race to the bottom means margins are two thin to add an extra $10 port, for example.