Rumor sites announce Apple is about to bring out a telephone . . . Apple doesn’t . . . Wall Street analysts pick up on this and downgrade their evaluation of Apple stock . . . AAPL actually goes down on the NASDAQ! Save for banging his head against the wall, what can Steve do when stuff like this happens?

…but don’t think that Apple is above cribbing a few ideas from others too if it suits its purposes.

Yes, of course, but Apple usually takes this a few steps further. Remember that Chief Steve used to love to quote Pablo Picasso’s famous line, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” (In the sense of making something copied your own and evolving it into something more-or-less unique, interesting, and sometimes even useful.

Very nice.