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29 dumb comments about Apple’s failure to innovate

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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July 8, 2013, 7:27 AM ET

FORTUNE — Readers of this blog have known for some time that John Kirk, who posts regularly as “Falkirk,” has a keen eye for clueless Apple (AAPL) commentary and a droll sense of humor.

Now the rest of the world can feel the sting of Kirk’s sharp wit.

In a July 5 Tech.pinions piece the self-described “recovering attorney” has interspersed quotes from just about every recent commentary about Apple’s failure to innovate — 29 in all — with some not-so-terrible jokes.

A sample pairing:

Stunning nine month gap between product events “Apple will hold its first major product event in nine months on Monday, a stunning gap for a company that relies on regularly impressing customers with new innovations.”

A bear walks into a bar and says, “Bartender, I’d like a gin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and tonic.” And the bartender says, “Sure, but what’s with the big pause?”

Kirk’s point, made by quoting liberally from Ron Adner’s The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See That Others Miss, is that Steve Jobs’ genius was to be the best mover, not the first mover. As Jobs himself put it:

“Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. Those waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely, it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years.”

He’s got a point, you know.

You can read Kirk’s piece at Can’t innovate anymore my A$$.

My favorite Kirkism:

A bartender walks into a church, a temple and a mosque. He has no idea how jokes work.

About the Author
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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