I think this statement is the biggest problem with the article. I can't reasonably see how the innovators within Apple would be too bothered by what the legal team are up to.
I have a rather firm rule that when a company moves its competition from the marketplace to the courthouse, it's a bad sign, one way or another.
That doesn't mean they weren't justified in doing so, but it's still a bad sign, e.g. consumes management and eventually engineer/designer/the creators of this stuff mind share, tells us they're really worried about competition, etc. And as noted in the article, tends to result in reputational damage.
Seriously, even small companies can do more than one thing at a time - why can't a big company.