It was a rather typical process: Apple recruiter reaches out via LI, butters me up on my extensive experience, etc
My process was accelerated, because I happened to be on vacation in the Bay Area. So I was not subjected to endless online whiteboarding sessions.
Interview day was typical for Apple: they sequester you in a room for a day, and a stream of engineers come to test you.
At the end of the day, I felt I kicked butt during the interview. I sliced through their programming and technical questions. Unfortunately, they did not think so: they ultimately were looking for perfect answers. What I wrote below, was pretty close to perfect, given that most of these questions come at you cold.
In other words, their ultimate evaluation of my abilities (nor their justifications) did not follow any sort of logical outcome: what they said to me, as opposed to what was said in their de-brief meeting about me, did not add up.
Now, if only they held up the rest of their SW to the same levels of excellence they expected from me, maybe they'd have a lot less buggy SW. Such is interviewing at Apple I guess.