“At the moment, I admit, it seems absurd to criticize Apple. I even cringe when I read my own stuff. It’s not easy to go against the grain, particularly when you’re doing so vis-a-vis a company you love, respect and spend a ton of money with while it continues to power ahead as the cheapest stock on the market,” Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet.
“Because it lacks credible competition, Apple faces few external threats that we know of. Of course, that’s the tricky part about external threats; you do not necessarily see them coming. Great CEOs have to act, in part, like Hollywood producers, dreaming up seemingly unthinkable alternative scenarios to the status quo,” Pendola writes. “They must see the writing on the wall. But, again, the human experience teaches us that when you’re the graffiti artist, you’re often blind to it. Coupled with the task of managing after Steve Jobs, Tim Cook appears to be in an impossible situation.”
Pendola writes, “If you can blame Jobs for anything, it’s that maybe he hired ‘B’ players who he thought were ‘A’ players. When the decision to drop a feature as popular as Google Maps happens too soon, it’s a sure sign that the ‘B’ players have too much power. When this occurs, you worry less about Strategic Inflection Points; instead, Tim Cook needs to be on the lookout for a Bozo Explosion. Without Steve Jobs to consult, Apple has to figure out whether to eat crow and crawl back to Google’s door or take more heat as it attempts to mitigate this not-so-small disaster. Meantime, it furiously works to perfect something that never would have made it past Steve Jobs’s desk in unfinished form.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Rocco is the very definition of “one-note.” Learn a new one, Rocco, you monotonously insufferable bore.
Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect – by a long shot. Who do you think invited Eric Schmidt to sit on Apple Board — and that was after being burned so badly by Bill Gates! Jobs made the same mistake twice.
Tim Cook isn’t perfect, either – nobody is – but Cook’s not killing Apple Inc. because they made a clunker ad campaign and failed to prepare Maps properly (data-wise and PR-wise for the obvious threat of a FUD campaign).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Jobs’ double mistake with his partners was just prove that he was not that mean and cynical person as he is portrayed by cliche. He certainly had personality issues, but in this regard he proved to be trusting person, believer in good and principles.
What a PIECE of FUD!
Totally agree DeRS, This guy is just filling a hit piece for Friday.
“Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet.” – Ok that says he is a shill right there. JMHO lol.
“Because it lacks credible competition,” Apple is its own competition. Just look at the new iPod nano. People are yelling cause they like the old one. Why sell a new one when people are still buying the old one??? right??
“I even cringe when I read my own stuff. ”
Rocco’s crocodile tears. “Gee I hate to report this stuff and it pains me to have to but it’s all too true based on my say-so and not the billions Apple makes to contradict me.”
If I ‘cringe when I read my own stuff’ I take it as a little signal that my insights might suck and my argument may need a complete re-think.
MDN – Why are you giving Rocky Balboa the hits?
Agreed. What happened to your “Think Before You Click” warning MDN? Fortunately your headlines do serve as some sort of warning at least.
The “B” players would be sure to play it safe. The “A” players know when they need to do something painful short-term in order to avoid a bigger long-term problem. Tim Cook and the rest of the team at Apple know that, and Rocco probably even knows better than his goofy hit piece.
With anything from TheStreet.com, you should preface whatever they say with “I would like you to believe that…”
(I’ve heard this said regarding the fact the police can lie to people to get info out of them or to control their behavior).
Why is it that everyone assumes it was Apple’s decision to drop support for Google Maps?
The truth is that we have no idea whose decision it was.
Apple had to do something. Google withheld maps features in iOS that it makes available on Android.
I’m sure it was Steve Jobs who didn’t want to rely on Google for maps and wanted Apple’s own maps a long time ago – I still see a lot of crap on Google’s maps as well.
One feature missing in Google’s Maps but not Apple Maps is the handy rotation capability.
I agree. I’d bet if Steve were still here, they’d be working on a search engine, but maybe he started that before he was gone.
Agreed. We have no idea what Google was demanding from Apple in order to continue providing map data and new features (a dropping of lawsuits or licensing of patents?). Maybe Google quadrupled the price it wanted. Who knows, but to slap a label on it like Apple lightly decided to drop Google Maps is silly.
The other goofiness is that Apple gets a lot of its Maps data from the same sources that Google gets its data, TomTom being one. Google does have its own proprietary data, and has Street View (which has never been that useful for me), and Google puts its ad data into Maps.
Street View is expensive. Not only do Google spend on fuel to do the drive by but they must examine each frame taken to pixelate auto License Plates and such.
I heard it is still marginally useful to detectives, however, to spot clues to crimes in progress, and stumbling over the occasional body
The bottom line is that because of Google’s prior actions, it’s a battle to the death between Apple and Google.
Take the hit now, but get rid of Google on the iPhone. Apple has more than sufficient resources to make Maps better and it will. Screw Google.
Exactamundo.
Apple’s new partners may be weaker in some respects than Google was, but they are allowing Apple to roll out an implementation that should grow to surpass Google’s in usability (except in the Boondocks, but everybody knows you can’t get there from here anyway, so forget maps for now)
Also the new partners at least are not stabbing Apple in the back with one hand, and swiping your personal information with the other, while continuously parading ads on every available surface.
Agreed, but street view will be missed.
Yup
MobileMe happened on Job’s watch.
I liked MobileMe a lot, lots better than iClod®.
I liked it as well – there were a lot of good features in it – hopefully they will bring some back.
+1, I so miss my MobileMe. 🙁
Anyhow on topic. Tim is one of the main reasons Apple has a death grip on suppliers and the supply chain. One of the main reasons others can’t match their products let alone keep up or even get in the game.
This controls the supply and the price and is brilliant and this is what Tim does best. He may not have the flare but he sure has something SJ didn’t have and SJ knew that.
Thank you MDN for not slogging more shit on Tim. Apple has had imperfect releases before, they’ll get it fixed, or ride Tom-Tom’s ass to fix it. If the maps are incorrect that ball falls in Tom-Tom’s court I would think. Apple is providing access via Tom-Tom’s resources. Correct??
But they should have either called this Map feature a Beta or tested it better against a comparison of a Google Map rendition to avoid all this bad press in the first place. That part does fall on Apple.
Yeah, cause these guys never had anything to bitch and moan about when Steve was in charge. Everything went so smooth. None of these clowns ever questioned his leadership.
Yes! I remember that very clearly! Back when technology reporters were the very model of appreciative and gentlemanly comportment!
Back when lions lay down with lambs! When strangers on the street would smile and tip their hats in passing! When you could buy a shot of the good stuff for three dollars!
This is ludicrous I had criticisms yesterday on the new Maps app but that is mainly because I was expecting more due to the praise of test versions plus some obvious visual glitches. But it is hardly a disaster or anything like it its just that there is room for improvement as in anything with this sort of massive data requirement. This sort of thing would never get into the real world if you waited for it to be perfect after all Google maps is far from that as is most of their software including mail which has an appalling UI.
Fact is that Apple was probably forced to introduce it at this time because of contract reasons and fact is software like this as with siri wont improve unless it is helped by millions of local ‘experts’ who can point out glitches that those sitting in offices will never spot. Strange that Apple gets it in the neck while other companies produce little else but software of this nature that never actually improves much and no one makes a squeak or if they do no one listens.
Strange, yes
The acknowledged industry leader’s towering profile provides an irresistible target for the crazed Lilliputians.
I might not be out there in Peoria or some uncharted regions of the world (New York, New York) – but let me just say I absolutely LOVE the new Maps application – the 3D renderings of Manhattan are beyond fantastic! I am sure the data gaps mentioned will be fixed shortly but it is an incredible first effort.
Cannot believe that this is being portrayed as the “weak link” in iPhone 5… ludicrous…
WTF?! So Cook, Schiller, Ives, Forstall & company are idiots? Jobs ran EVERYTHING?! He delegated nothing? No, not at all. These people were crucial with all the decisions made. They know where this ship is going.
If Cook acts just like Steve Jobs, he’s crucified. If Cook acts nothing like Steve Jobs, he’s crucified. If the company tanks, it’s Cook’s fault. If the company succeeds, it’s still Jobs’ doing. Piss off guys. This hit pieces are getting old.
Absofuckinglutely! MDN explains it perfectly. Jobs made plenty of mistakes. Cook will undoubtedly make mistakes too. Steve Jobs is dead. Move on.
I use Navigon, I’ve never used Maps as a resource while driving. Why bother? Navigon lets me download complete maps so I don’t need a data connection while I’m driving.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/navigon-north-america/id321506742?mt=8
There is one thing I cannot understand: Apple must have known that Maps is not perfect. And they must have known what would happen in the internet when they release it as it is.
Why they did not call it a Beta version like Siri? Everything would have been much easier now for them. Apple should have avoided the world laughing about Apple and Maps.
Can somebody please explain, seriously?
I don’t completely disagree with this. There are more than a few signs that decisions are being made by a “B Committee” within Apple, and that the actual people who engineer and develop “insanely great” products are being consulted as an after thought, if they are being consulted at all.
When speaking about why great companies fail, Steve Jobs said:
“What happens is, Like with John Scully. John came from PepSiCo. They at most would change their product every 10 years. To them a new product was like a new size bottle. So if you were a product person, you couldn’t change the course of that company very much. So who influences the success of PepSiCo?
The sales and marketing people.
Therefore they were the ones that got promoted and they were the ones that ran the company.
For Pepsico that might have been ok. But it turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies, that get monopolies, like oh, IBM and Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? You have a monopoly marketshare. The company is not any more successful.
So the people who can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies, and the product people get driven out of decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. It’s like sort of the product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position get rotted out by people running these companies who have no conception of a good product vs. a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product, and they really have no feeling in their heart, really, about wanting to help the customers.
So that’s what happened at Xerox Parc. The people at Xerox Parc used to call the people who ran Xerox Toner heads. ”
– Steve Jobs “The Lost Interview”
Consider that many customers have come to rely upon Google maps quite heavily. A sales and marketing type would look at the benefits of controlling the maps application and want to get Google out of the picture as soon as possible. An engineer might say “That’s fine, but it took Google 5 to 7 years of building their maps data. They’ve got cars driving the streets. They put a satellite into space for crying out loud. We aren’t ready. “
Thos idiot is the Street’s new donkey boy Mortitz. He’s predicted doom for Apple to suppliment his unabashedly shorting that cost him a bundle a few weeks ago when he wrote a take the money and run article just nefore earnings…
He is a mutha
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11637592/1/apple-stock-is-dead-sell-it-on-a-bounce.html
On 07/25/12 repeat : 07/25/12 Rocco Bendova Pedolla wrote: Apple stock is dead- sell it on a bounce.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11637592/1/apple-stock-is-dead-sell-it-on-a-bounce.html
After this declaration and te highly reccommended linked article, there is simply never any reason to even consider this moron an authority on anything but gutter jounalism.
Apple has shown us pure excellence often enough that some have grown to (adolescently) expect it.
Maps isn’t perfect. So what!
Well, here’s what’s “so what.”
Apple sells “perfection.” Apple sells “incredibly complex and beautiful products that just work.” Apple is Apple because they don’t push crap out the door.
When Apple pushes problematic products out the door, or allows problematic products to remain in service too long, the once very tangible difference between Apple and everyone else can rapidly be evaporated by harsh criticism. Apple doesn’t just make products for those of us that have known how great they are since day 1, now everyone is an Apple fan. When an Apple product doesn’t work, you don’t just read about it in tech blogs, or hear Rush Limbaugh pontificate on it, no, it makes the evening news on CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and it examined in depth by The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and so on.
You allow that to happen to much, and suddenly you become nothing but just another tech vendor.
One day you wake up and your company is being run by Steve Balmer and the once high flying stellar stock sits at $30 a share.
That’s so what.
dude, it’s ONE freaking app out of 700,000. Yes, It needs to be fixed and it will, but you’re making way to much of it. Google maps still works via Safari for anyone who wants it.
Take a few valium and see me when the cows come home.
Don’t believe the hype!
mobile me, ping, antennae gate, Schmidt… etc. Steve made mistakes and look what happened to Apple. #1 in customer service, most valuable company in the world, by far best electronic products one can get. FUD is put out by people who have a grudge with apple. Plain and simple.
Antennae Gate was largely debunked. Mobile Me and Ping didn’t matter so much because heck, no one was using them *much* anyway.
People rely heavily on Google’s maps now, and to chuck it out with your own product that isn’t ready for prime time, not something I believe Jobs would have done.
It used to be that “the creative process at Apple is one of constantly preparing someone – be it one’s boss, boss’s boss, or oneself – for a presentation to Jobs.” Jobs was the guy that said “This is a piece of shit.” Or “This is great.”
Without him, who are people preparing to impress?
Tim freaking Cook?
With all due respect TM, That’s BS. Did it ever occur to you that it was Steve Jobs who may have booted Google out of the Maps app (or the youTube app for that matter)? None of us laymen are in a position to say what Steve would have done (Cook, Schiller and crew are far more qualified), so don’t make an ass of yourself trying to.
GeeOne, the one thing I will acknowledge is that it is a pointless argument. There is no longer a Steve Jobs, and I do not believe that Cook has the balls to admit that he’s not that person and go out and find that person(s). In addition, I find it difficult to believe that Apple couldn’t have licensed Google’s map data for a couple more years. They could have put their own interface on top. Such an easily avoided screw up is difficult to understand.
Now they’re putting the Maps team in “lockdown?”
There are 2 types of errors I’m seeing from maps, and it only took 10 minutes of playing to find examples. Searches for street names lead to similar but the wrong streets, and large chunks of areas are missing.
This seems to be the type of errors people are reporting from around the world. Yet someone at Apple said, “Oh well. It’s good enough.” Maybe I don’t know what Steve would have said, I just don’t think he would have said “good enough,” which is what this amounts to.
FYI: it wasn’t just “chucked” out.. The five year contract was up, Google didn’t want to allow certain features such as turn by turn Navigation and because of the disputes going on between the two companies Apple didn’t want to renew for another five yearss. They did the right thing, their only mistake was not calling it “beta” for the first year or so.. And as mentioned, Google maps are still available via Safari.
Aint no ome who ” relies heavily” on Google Maps that hasn’t gotten lost on the way. No one.
I wish Elon Musk ran Apple
That would be a far better choice, but people like Musk don’t look for jobs unfortunately, they create worlds, and they create the next great thing, and they create wealth. They are the ones that raise the pond and keep all our boats floating. Like Steve Jobs.
Unfortunately, you are right
Hasn’t anybody pointed out that Jobs hand picked Cook as his heir apparent? Was that Jobs’ big mistake? So far, no, not when one examines the profit picture. Despite blunders, lost magic, and bad press, consumers climb over each other to buy Apple. Point is, the Jobs-founded Apple culture and organization continue in a familiar, comfortable pattern.
Maybe all that completely goes away, if you put in any new, different visionary not named Steve Jobs in place of Tim Cook. Each visionary is one of a kind and makes their own weather.
“I even cringe when I read my own stuff”
I think that said all that was necessary.
This guy is an “F” writer, who continues to write anti-apple crapola.
How do you spell idiot? Rocco
“Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect – by a long shot. Who do you think invited Eric Schmidt to sit on Apple Board — and that was after being burned so badly by Bill Gates! Jobs made the same mistake twice.”
Revisionist history.
Jobs did *completely* screw up with Schmidt. He did no better with Intuit’s Campbell on the board.
However, Jobs was not the one that gave away the keys to the kingdom to Gates. That was Sculley.
Gates went to Sculley with the bluff that Microsoft would stop writing and selling software for Apple machines (Apple ][ and Mac) if Apple did not give Microsoft access to the Macintosh operating system **source code**. Sculley caved. He approved a contract with Microsoft where Microsoft got copies of the underlying source code to the Mac System software. The contract stated that Microsoft could utilize that source code in the Windows products. It stated that it could be used in version 1 “and subsequent versions”.
When the Apple Mac source code showed up in Windows version 2 Apple sued. When the source code showed up in Windows 3.x Apple added that version to the lawsuit. Apple said “and subsequent versions” meant versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. NOT version 2.x or 3.x. Microsoft said “and subsequent versions” meant versions 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, etc. When the judge finally ruled he agreed with Microsoft’s interpretation.
It is at all surprising that Windows 95 (aka Windows 4.0) looked a lot more like the Mac than any previous version — especially since it shipped AFTER the judge’s ruling? Microsoft knew they were free to copy the Mac System (as it was known back then) as much as they wanted!
This was Sculley’s biggest screw up — not Jobs’. Sculley fell for Gates’ bluff and gave away the keys to the kingdom. If Sculley hadn’t screwed up (or if the judge had ruled the other way) the 90s would have been very different for personal computer makers.
Compare this with the QuickTime issue…
Apple hired an outside firm to write part of the software for QuickTime. That firm was an elite group of specialists. They delivered the code to Apple and all rights to the code transferred to Apple.
Microsoft knew it needed its own QuickTime equivalent and went to the same firm for help. Unfortunately for Microsoft, some of the Apple owned code ended up in Microsoft’s products. Additionally, at that time Microsoft was trying to pressure Apple to kill the vast majority of QuickTime’s capabilities — or else Microsoft wouldn’t make a Mac version of its coming versions.
Jobs contacted Gates and made it clear that Microsoft was in clear, absolute, unmitigated violation for using Apple’s code without permission. The result: two things: one — leverage for the $150 million investment in non voting stock and five year commitment to continue Mac Office development that everyone knows about and loudly claims “saved” Apple, and two — the one few people know about: Microsoft agreed to pay a sizable sum to Apple to avoid any litigation over the use of that code. That sum, in private circles, is discussed in values ranging from about $20 to over $100 million.
The bottom line: When it came to dealing with Gates Jobs did not cave like Sculley did.
Jobs screwed up in many ways — everything from approving the hockey puck mouse to inviting Schmidt to the board. However, don’t think for a moment that the Gates’ debacle was Jobs’ fault.
Him again.
What a clueless asswipe. Dumbest sphincter on the internet about Apple.
Thanks MDN for not hoisting Tim Cook on some pundits imaginary petard. Sometimes you seem to feel the need to do that. Cook and the other great executives at Apple are doing well in a very volatile and exciting mobile world that they were largely responsible for creating.
“Without Steve Jobs to consult, Apple has to figure out whether to eat crow and crawl back to Google’s door or take more heat as it attempts to mitigate this not-so-small disaster. Meantime, it furiously works to perfect something that never would have made it past Steve Jobs’s desk in unfinished form.”
Hey, relax there, Rocco. Haven’t you seen and heard about the lines forming around the world to buy the iPhone 5? Jobs and Cook’s ultimate mandate is to maximise sales and profits for Apple. On that score, Cook’s not doing too badly, is he?
As for the vision thing, let me try, as a regular Apple watcher, to clue you in on what is going to happen: Apple will continuously keep improving Maps until they get it right – simple as that. There is nowhere to go for this app – or any other Apple app for that matter – than up.
In short, even with Maps so “bad” – and I think a lot of that is really bullcrap because the average iPhone 5 user is not going to get his or her knickers in a knot because some obscure mall in some obscure city appears to be in the middle of a river on Maps – iPhone 5 is going to sell a shipload.
Why? Because I don’t think anyone ever bought an iPhone just because it had Google Maps, and nobody is going to buy an iPhone just because it has Apple’s Maps.
Talk about scrapping the bottom of the barrel!
By the way, just about a week before IOS 6 came out, I needed to find a place on Google Maps – and a major highway in my area was absolutely missing from the map.
I STRONGLY hate Pendola! Frickin douche!