Well, the results are in, and according to MacMinute, Apple just improved its ranking by a couple of notches on this year's WIRED 40 list, the magazine's "annual list of the 40 companies leading in technology and innovation." Moreover, Apple clawed its way from third place all the way up and into the Numero Uno spot-- which means that now we've got to make all those obligatory congratulations, comment on how this was a well-deserved ranking and a long time coming, onerously observe that each and every employee at Apple contributed to this prestigious honor, etc. etc. etc. And frankly, we're kinda bummed about all that.

See, there's a lot more drama when Apple gets shafted by these things. Of course Apple was one of the most influential and innovative tech companies last year, so when the company is actually recognized as such, about all we can do is pad the plot with congratulatory filler. It's far more interesting when Apple gets snubbed, because then we can rant until foamy about international media conspiracies dedicated to the continual undermining of Steve and his minions. We couldn't even really complain last year when Apple only ranked third, since that was the first time that WIRED had included Apple on the list at all, so third place was way too much of an improvement to be interpreted as much of an injustice. This year, why couldn't Apple have slipped into fifth? Or even eleventh? Maybe even just behind, say, RealNetworks and Dell so we could have a really good fume about the whole thing?

At least the conspiracy theorists have something to freak out about, which is that, for the second year in a row, WIRED apparently only included Apple because of its music business, with nary a mention of Macs: "the computermaker turned consumer electronics powerhouse has made a virtue of proprietary control, consistently delivering quality and flair. The company sold 8.2 million iPods in 2004, and iTunes accounted for 70 percent of legal music downloads, leading to exceptional revenue and profit in Q4." Moreover, WIRED wonders, "with such a foothold in music, can an assault on TV be far behind?" Well, maybe, folks, but we have our own sneaking suspicion that the company might instead make some-- and call us crazy, here-- really great personal computers first. Eh, whatever. Maybe Tiger will get a mention next year.

Truth be told, though, it's sort of hard to get really worked up about the omission of the Mac from WIRED's little blurb, since that sort of thing's been par for the course for the past couple of years. So instead we think we'll complain boisterously about Apple's ranking: only first place?! Why, clearly Apple should have taken at least the 0th spot-- and probably more like -5th or -6th! Curse you, WIRED, for sullying Apple's reputation for innovation by putting the company on the positive side of the number line!