I'm sure apple's "tiny innovative core" is very good at what they do, and works very hard, but I suspect the reason you don't hear as much about the work environment there is that they are subject to much stricter policies concerning what they write about their employer than are employees at many other places including google and facebook.
Add to that a culture that values protecting secrets versus some notion of 'openness', and an incentive to hold onto that job if you really like it and the valuable stock options that may have come with it, and I'm not terribly surprised that you see relatively few insider stories.
This. Someone close to me worked there for 7 years. The level of secrecy is crazy. Like, dysfunctional-hard-to-do-your-work and stay-up-all-night-working-before-a-launch-because-you-are-only-finding-out-about-it-then crazy. Talking in public about your job would not end well.
Therefore I'm surprised about the OP. Sure they have a specific employment contract in place with a batallion of lawyers drooling on their preys, so what does the OP risk?
Add to that a culture that values protecting secrets versus some notion of 'openness', and an incentive to hold onto that job if you really like it and the valuable stock options that may have come with it, and I'm not terribly surprised that you see relatively few insider stories.