Tim Cook, CEO of too-big-to-fail Apple took the opportunity to kick the rotting corpse that is Nokia just a few microseconds after a deal between Microsoft and Nokia was announced. Said Timmy, “I think [Nokia] is a reminder to everyone in business that you have to keep innovating and that to not innovate is to die.” The problem here is that Nokia did innovate. It’s Apple that has been lagging behind for years.

This is of course coming from the CEO of the company that released last year’s iPhone as this year’s iPhone plus a paint job and whose biggest innovation on their latest flagship was to add a second light bulb to the flash that no one uses.

Now, I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but if there is a company in the mobile industry today that need to learn how to innovate, it’s Apple. Apple has been consistently behind the curve in just about every aspect of the mobile space since they redefined it five years ago. Sure back then Apple was the bee’s knees of mobile tech with their bouncy animations and seventeen billion fart apps, but since then, Timmy boy, Apple has let others do the innovation while it rides the coat tails of the pioneers.

Something borrowed

Your multitasking? webOS. Your notifications? I mean the ones that are not the pop-up garbage (which are still around for some god awful reason) – Android. Copy/paste? Panorama? Maps? All from other innovative sources.

As a matter of fact, let’s take a look at Apple’s recent innovations. Maps. Nice call. How many folks ended up in Death Valley while trying to go to the supermarket? I don’t know. They’re all dead.

Fingerprint scanning. It lasted a whopping three hours post-release before it was hacked by a couple of teenagers with a Baby’s First CSI kit. Nice work Apple. I think I’ll just change my password. Oh wait, it’s attached to my finger.

A four inch screen. Seriously. This particular coup updated the iPhone so it was only one year behind everyone else. A four freakin’ inch screen.

Siri. Arguably the most impressive feature Apple has brought to the table in the last 4 years – assuming you’re using it in a laboratory or on a commercial. In the real world, you know how many people sit there screaming at their phones in Starbucks? No one. Because no one uses it.

Don’t get me wrong though. Your new color palette is really pretty, in the same way my daughter’s finger paintings are pretty. Oh, and you’re icons wiggle when you move the phone. Well done.

41 million innovations

In the meantime, Nokia brought the world a 41 megapixel camera. Nokia integrated wireless charging into their flagship, the Lumia 920 (Then of course they butchered it in subsequent models, but that’s a different conversation). Nokia brought an entire suite of location services to a platform that previously only had Bing to work with. Nokia brought developers to a struggling platform through initiatives like a developer ambassador program and Dvlup.

Nokia failed not because they failed to innovate, but because they dropped their dead platform and moved to a tiny third place platform, and they did so late in the game. Innovation had nothing to do with it. The only real innovation we have seen in the past five years has come from companies like Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry. Innovation does not equal success. Innovation only means new. It’s up to the companies then to turn that ‘new’ into profit.

Or they can be like Apple and pick over the corpses of those who came before them while at the same time pretending that they came up with everything themselves. And hey, that works for you. Good on ya. You’ve built a great empire on the backs of the vanquished and…Oh wait….

Coat tails are comfy

You didn’t even do that. Steve did. “I’ll take ‘Coat tail riding to the top’ for $100, Alex.”

And speaking of Steve, what has Apple’s market share been like with Steve tragically passed? Going down like prom night, Timmy-boy. You say you want to innovate? You haven’t even stopped the bleeding. Do that first, then maybe we’ll let you comment on what others are doing wrong.

I would suggest, Timothy, with the utmost humility and respect, sit down and shut up. You can stand on your stage twice a year and push out the latest buffet of boring food for the lemmings to feast on. You can sit at the head of the boardroom table and pretend to be the organ grinder when we all know you’re the monkey with the hat and the can. We all know who wore the turtlenecks in that family.

Take a good hard look at Apple’s history. If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Apple is the Pepe Le Pew of the mobile tech world, and Tim…

…you stink.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

Via: The Verge