Apple certainly does a lot of experimentation, but their approach differs greatly from Google's. The main reasoning behind Google Labs as far as I can determine

Apple certainly does a lot of experimentation, but their approach differs greatly from Google's. The main reasoning behind Google Labs as far as I can determine is to expose projects to the broader world and determine which are best through some form of natural selection. A form of market research if you will. Apple on the other hand has been very much against market research, preferring to experiment internally, killing of bad ideas before the world even hears about them and presenting a polished final product to the outside world when it's done and ready. Both approaches certainly work, Google's works great for improving their existing suite of products whereas Apple's works better for incubating new products that consumers don't even realise they want yet.