"The purpose of patents aren't reward hard work, but to promote innovation."

Ok, that's right. But you follow it by asking the wrong question. It's not "would Apple still have innovated?" it's "would Apple have innovated more" and I think that is harder to answer, because it's not just about innovating it's about leveraging innovation for profit.

The chances are they would have innovated the about the same but held back on releasing features and been far more strategic (more than they already are) because they would have been very well aware of the enhanced threat of copying!!!

Is this obvious? Is that a net gain or a net loss?