The ultimate comeback kid

In the next few months Apple - the erstwhile computer company that now makes smartphones and tablets and sells more digital content than anyone else on the planet - will overtake energy giant Exxon Mobil as the world's most valued company. Wow.

It is a fundamental rearrangement of new-economy intellectual property over old-economy oil supremacy.

Apple is only $52-billion short of Exxon's $410-billion valuation. Remarkably, Apple only has a quarter of the revenue of Exxon, the largest producer of oil.

The latest surge in value (Apple last year overtook rivals Microsoft and Google to become the most valued tech and media company) is due to Apple's frankly astounding third-quarter results.

Its profits rose 125% to $7.31-billion. The sale of iPhones alone shot up 142% and 20.3 million were sold in the three-month period, double what researchers IDC said was the growth rate of the rest of the smartphone market - with just one model that was launched four years ago.

Now there is talk of the iPhone going on sale in China, sparking yet another stock valuation frenzy.

"We're thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82% and profits up 125%," said Apple's charismatic CEO, Steve Jobs.

Apple has also overtaken Nokia, which sold 16.7million smartphones in the quarter and is the biggest maker of smartphones.

The newest version of Apple's operating system, Lion, sold one million copies on its first day of sale last week.

When Apple does overtake Exxon, it will be the crown on the most remarkable comeback in company history. Almost dead and buried in 1996, when it recalled Jobs, its fired co-founder, from a decade in exile, Apple made clunky beige boxes. Within two years, Jobs, who had spent his time building up two little businesses called NeXT and Pixar, would launch the first of many design masterpieces, the all-in-one iMac.

Along the way to rewriting corporate history, Jobs and his chief designer, Jonathan Ives, reinforced the importance of user experience and become leaders in every industry into which they rushed. (Think portable media players, digital music, cellphones, the tablet market and ultra-portable laptops.)

Jobs, who has survived a rare form of pancreatic cancer and is on extended medical leave, has been voted the "CEO of the decade" by Fortune magazine, showered with accolades and is widely considered a guru.

After the sale of Pixar to Disney, he is also the largest shareholder in the legendary animation studio.

Apple does make it easy to use technology. I believe Apple's greatest gift has not been beautiful design but user experience. It is a pleasure to use its products.

And easy too. Don't believe me? Give an iPhone to a three-year-old and watch him use it like he was born with it.

But Apple is an increasingly monopolistic-behaving behemoth and its attitude is seemingly "our way or the highway".

As AllThingsD website journalist Kara Swisher said earlier this year, Apple is "the classiest fascist company in America".

Back home, the launch of the first smartphone banking app and pay-per-view television rounded off a good week for South African innovation.

FNB's app for touch-screen smartphones is the first in Africa, the bank claims, and is a significant step in bringing banking to cellphones.

By 2015, 80% of cellphones are expected to be smartphones, according to researchers Gartner.

Though popular in developed markets, DStv's BoxOffice is the first pay-per-view service in South Africa. One can rent movies, four to six months after they were on circuit, at R25 for 48 hours.

Innovation, as Apple has shown, is utterly important. Apple's successful resurgence is a lesson every company should learn.

• Shapshak is the editor of Stuff magazine