Apple Inc., burnished by the iPhone's success and memorials toSteve Jobs, displaced Google Inc. as top company in HarrisInteractive's poll of corporate images. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. andJohnson & Johnson dropped.

Apple earned the highest score in the 13-year history of Harris'survey of U.S. consumers, buoyed by the Cupertino, California-basedcompany's financial success and products like last year's iPhone4S, said Robert Fronk, the pollster's executive vice president. Therise came even as corporate America's reputation sank, hurt bysagging views of the financial industry, Harris said today in astatement.

“After a little positive momentum last year, across the board,we saw the tarnish come back,” Fronk said in a telephone interview.“Whether it's due to Occupy Wall Street or the bad news in general,the negatives of the banking and financial- services industries arespreading.”

J&J, the world's second-biggest seller of health-careproducts, fell to seventh after three years of product recalls, thefirst time the reputation of the New Brunswick, New Jersey- basedcompany has ranked below the top two in Harris' annual poll.Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska, plunged from fourth place to24th, after an executive resigned in March and was accused byChairman Warren Buffett of violating the firm's insider tradingrules.

Only eight companies were rated as “excellent” in Harris' pollof 17,000 people, half the number in 2011.

Google, the Mountain View, California-based owner of the world'smost-popular search engine, slipped to second place from first lastyear. Rounding out the top five were Coca-Cola Co., based inAtlanta, followed by Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle, and Kraft FoodsInc., based in Northfield, Illinois.

Apple topped the public's ratings for vision and leadership,products and services, financial performance and workplaceenvironment, four of the six categories that Harris tracked. Thecompany's shares topped the $500 mark at the close today andadvanced 41 percent in the past 12 months.

Along with the glow of products like the iPhone and iPad, Applebenefited from the praise aimed at co-founder Jobs, said Harris'Fronk. The former chief executive officer, who rescued Apple fromthe brink of bankruptcy when he returned to the company in 1997,died on Oct. 5. The poll's online surveys were conducted from Dec.2 to Dec. 19.

“The outpouring around him as a visionary leader probably playeda strong role in where they ended up,” Fronk said.

Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, didn't immediately return amessage seeking comment on the Harris poll.

Berkshire's slide followed the March resignation of executiveDavid Sokol, amid revelations that he had bought shares of aBuffett takeover target. In interviews, respondents also cited thecompany's ties to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the New York-based bankin which Buffett invested $5 billion in 2008. Goldman ranked 59th,second to last, in this year's poll. Financial firms suffered fourof the five biggest drops in reputation from last year.

Buffett may also have suffered from his endorsement of PresidentBarack Obama's so-called “Buffett rule,” Fronk said. Democrats saidthe proposal would ensure the wealthy don't pay lower tax ratesthan other Americans. U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, aRepublican candidate for president last year, dismissed the idea asa “sound bite” and suggested Buffett donate his fortune to thegovernment if he felt he wasn't paying enough.

Buffett didn't respond to a request for comment about the polle-mailed to his assistant.

View of J&J

While J&J, which sells products as varied as cancer drugs,Band-Aids and artificial hips, remained among the most reputablecompanies, there were worrisome signs that it no longer commandedrespect on vision, leadership and emotional appeal, Fronk said.Consumers questioned one of J&J's “bedrock strengths,” the ideathat it can be counted on to “do the right thing,” Fronk said.

“They've got a window here where, if they can prove to thegeneral public and their customers that this was a blip, then theycan bring some of those not-sure or neutral people back,” he said.“If there's a belief that it's a long-term erosion, they're goingto take a hit” to sales as well as their image.

J&J was pleased to again rank “among the most reputablecompanies among U.S. consumers,” William Price, a companyspokesman, said in an e-mail. “We remain in a category of companieswith an excellent reputation, reflecting the unrelenting commitmentour employees have for the needs of patients and customers.”

American International Group Inc., the New York-based insurerrescued in a $182.3 billion U.S. bailout, took last place, just asit did the previous year.

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