“The level of delusion among Apple (AAPL) bulls reached unprecedented levels Friday morning,” TheStreet writes for Forbes. “Of course, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for MappleGate, just days after the company referred to the application as possibly ‘the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever.'”
“If for whatever reason, he felt the need to release something inferior, all Cook needed to do was slap a ‘Beta’ tag on the product, just like Apple did with Siri. Beta simply lowers the customer’s expectations,” TheStreet writes. “Apple probably did not “’Beta’ Maps because, unlike Siri, many users expect a reliable and fully-functioning mapping application. So, you can’t say it’s not there yet, which, as Cook learned the hard way, only supports not releasing it in the first place.”
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on Friday:
One thing we would like to know is: Who’s responsible for opening Apple up to this overblown shitstorm and why are they still working for Apple Inc., if they still are?
(Yes, we know we’ll likely never get those two answers.)
No matter what Apple does, no matter how much better they make Apple Maps, it will now always “suck” in the minds of a large segment of the population. This open letter from Cook only helps cement the idea that Maps is a “failure.” The fool(s) responsible for preparing Maps for release and then releasing it with obvious issues (overblown as they are) and therefore tainting Maps forever should face severe consequences. As in: Pink slip(s). If you don’t get fired over this debacle, what exactly does get you fired at Tim Cook’s Apple?
Apple seems to have learned nothing from the Newton: First impressions mean everything. Apple’s Maps have been Newtonized. All that’s missing is the Doonesbury strip.
We have our suspicions that Tim Cook cannot recognize good marketing from bad. Or the import of the customer’s Apple Retail experience to Apple Inc.’s bottom line. Now, after this Maps face-plant, we’re wondering if he has another blind spot for software. The multi-talented Steve Jobs was supposed to have been replaced, as best as possible, by a team of people. Some of these team members are obviously not performing up to anything near a Jobsian level.
It’s nice to say you strive to make “world-class products” for customers, Tim, it’s better to actually deliver them.
Here’s a little hint for the future: Everything that requires widespread customer use to develop a rich database before the product becomes fully usable should be clearly labeled “beta” upon release. Apple did it with Siri, but they forgot to do it with Maps. Had Apple been smart enough to simply place a “beta” tag on Maps, all of this rigamarole would never have occurred.
Steve’s attention to detail may very well be irreplaceable.
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Here’s the thing: Attention to detail should be replaceable; by brute force if necessary. Apple has over $100 billion dollars. They are not a rinky dink turnaround operation anymore. Apple needs to get a Quality Control team staffed by a bunch of Type-A’ers and led by a perfectionist. Such people certainly do exist. Too much shit is slipping through the cracks. For a very recent example: Apple, the most valuable company on earth, can’t manage to notice that iOS carrier settings were sapping off cellular on Verizon and AT&T even when the devices are connected to Wi-Fi? Seriously? A proper Quality Control team would have caught that in the first five minutes of testing.
TheStreet writes, “I observe Apple fanboys and fangirls with pity as they defend Tim Cook. He is the kind of guy Jobs would have fired… Just think about how beside himself Jobs would be if he was around to see Cook offer Google and Nokia Maps as alternatives while Apple gets its act together. Tim Cook actually told people that they might be better off with what freaking Nokia produces than something Designed by Apple in California… If Jobs was alive and just slid into a Chairman or Director role, Cook would have been writing his resignation letter, not a sappy apology on Friday.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We want to type here that “it’ll all be just fine.”
That we can’t do so should speak volumes.
Browett. Aborted “Mac Genius” ad campaign. Maps fiasco…
We just don’t know. The jury is still out on Tim Cook.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Nicholas C.” for the heads up.]
The iPhone5 and the Unicom status iPad Mini are widely assumed to be the last “Steve Jobs iPhone & iPad”. We will have to wait at least couple generation of iPhone and iPad releases to render our judgement on Mr. Tim Cook.
Pundits out there tend to forgot the 1st gen. Google Maps was as bad as, if not worst, compared to 1st gen. Apple Maps. Apple Maps will continue to evolve and improve.
my 2 cent…
…and so we learn children, that the saga of first world white people’s problems continues. Tomorrow we discuss the lack of good home-brewed lagers in newly gentrified burroughs and how to bitch effectively when the tapas are sub-par.
“Who’s responsible for opening Apple up to this overblown shitstorm”?
The press, duh… You get more page hits bashing Apple than praising them. Meanwhile, millions of people are using the new maps app, and finding it a vast improvement over the previous app. I like the fact that it uses so much less bandwidth, and I don’t have to wait and wait for map tiles to show up anymore.
This is all sooooo overblown! Maps is just an app. OK, so it needs work. Big deal. It has amazing features that other apps don’t come close to matching. I’m totally fine with it as is, and since there are other apps to supplement it, my advice is: Quit Whining!
Jesus Christ, this is all such bullshit. This whole maps “fiasco” has gotten so blown out of proportion that it is reaching critical mass of stupidity. Why, all of a sudden, does the media (and MDN, you’re on the hook here) think Apple has fallen from grace because of this? This is NOT Apple’s first mistake. They have a very long history of making mistakes. NO COMPANY, NO MAN is infallible. The media is to blame for this because they keep dredging up this bullshit maps story. Yes, it has problems. But jesus christ its just software. Have we all suddenly forgotten how to get anywhere without an app? The media is acting like the world is coming to an end over this. It will get fixed and it will be fine. Calm the f*ck down already.
MDN, you need to cut the crap, too. Steve is directly responsible for a whole slew of shitty decisions Apple has made over the last 15 years. Why should Tim be crucified for making his own? Mistakes happen. Judge Apple on how they FIX it, but for f*ck’s sake give them the chance first.
+1
Crap article.
Can’t tell me Apple did not know internally that their maps were not 100%. That is NOT a mistake. That was a business decision.
It may have been forced by lack of Google agreement or the need to start establishing their own maps beachhead in mobile advertising (likely).
If this author is right, Jobs would have fire himself when MobileMe was released…
NEWSFLASH: if Steve Jobs was alive he would have had organic yoghurt and granola for breakfast this morning!
Fuck you. No I wouldn’t. Stop trying to use my death to justify your personal opinions.
If I were alive I’d put a boot up the asses of everyone who said what I’d do if I were alive.
Of course, Apple does miss S J’s genius dictatorship..
I’m a converted PC guy from 5 years back and have bought lots of Apple kit.. Some inspired by Jobs, some not. BUT, having followed Apple’s arc over the last 20 years and watching them turn that ship around by sheer will power. Clever management and enormous risk taking have paid off big time. And I’m afraid you’re right. Jobs, for all his goofiness, still had a VERY high standard of excellence and expectations before he let Apple put their names on it… The MAPS debachle is a major breech of that quality standard. But, it wasn’t the first !!!
We could talk for days about the insane strategy of grinding down retail to squeeze another 1.5 points of margin – to hell with customers. And in that dust-up pissed-off customers AND EXISTING EMPLOYEES!!
This has GOT TO STOP!!
I think something else is up here and it has to do with Google pulling their maps over the Android stuff. I haven’t had a Maps problem so far but I’m in Europe. Google doesn’t have a maps app ready for the iPhone begat better way to help themselves out after losing in court than to play Apple like a violin and force them into no longer having a major benefit on a smartphone like a maps app. Google’s Android now has a better app than Apple and Apple got caught up in payback for the patent wars. Steve Balmer has never suffered this kind of ridicule but people have been looking for a reason to fire Cook since Jobs names him CEO. The iPhobe 5 sold 5 million copies. Maps isn’t killing sales. But a head or two must roll. It shouldn’t be Cook’s, he’s the one that has made all the sales records happen. Perfection isn’t possible but this is NOT a show stopper, it is a media as sales opportunity for The Street, CNET, ZDNET, etc.
Cook must go. Jony Ivy should lead CEO selection with board advice and consent.
I don’t know what Steve Jobs would do if he where alive today. I know that if I where Steve Jobs today I’d love to announce (with the utmost sarcasm and contempt I could possibly express) that I have decided to bring back John Scully and Gil Amelio as a consultants in order to avoid issues like this again. And while I’m at it I’ll be vetting all future strategic decisions through the tech press given their outstanding record on predicting the success or failure of a given product. It would be the prudent thing to do.
relax MDN!, Apple will continue to make the odd mistake just as Jobs did on occasion because humans make mistakes (yes, Jobs was in fact human). And Apple will continue to weather every ‘storm’ for decades (most of which are blown out of proportion, e.g. Antennagate). Why? Because the 1000’s of Apple employees are the heart of Apple and Jobs and all the good things about Apple live on through these talented, creative people who care just as much about the soul of Apple as you do. Because they CARE and they are INTELLIGENT they are the types of people who generally learn from their mistakes. Give it some more time before jumping off the deep end!
What is wrong with Maps? I live in a major Texas city and there is nothing but greatness coming from maps. If anything, it’s a little too easy to rotate when you intend to zoom.
Steve Jobs’ most dastardly deed was to remove the matte screen from iMacs, Cinema Display external screens, the MacBook Pro 13″, and not having matte on the MacBook Air. For this, he …
If Steve Jobs were alive today he’d have done the exact same things Tim Cook has done, only with more stubbornness and hubris and in the process probably alienating fence-sitters and making more people anti-Apple. Apparently, best in class industrial design, an incredible attention to detail, the best app ecosystem, a ton of alternatives and a customer base who are largely OK with the product anyway (apart from a few vocal whiners accompanied by competitor plants eager to make a mountain out of a molehill and shady dealers looking to make the share price drop so they can buy them up and cash in later) aren’t good enough for some commentators. But not good enough for MDN too? Where’s the eye on the long game here? Eventually, the vector-based Apple Maps will be the best because of the huge amount of info fed from iOS use – but the cord had to be cut to Google sooner or later. Steve Jobs was the man who lacked the foresight to create a decent in-house mapping solution earlier and who almost failed to have maps on the phone at all in the first place. Tim Cook is the man with the courage to go for it – warts and all – and get Apple off of Google’s product. Yet MDN are still cheerleading for Jobs. He wasn’t perfect, this situation wasn’t perfect, but it’s Cook – not Jobs – who’s at least put the pieces in place for a permanent solution that does NOT feed one of Apple’s major rivals a huge slice of advertising traffic. So who exactly should be fired? The guy who messed up, or the guy who’s fixing it?
It seems so obvious, doesn’t t it?
What, no rumors of impending 27″ retina iMac? Or the 7″ iPad? Instead, rhetoric regarding a WTF moment with Apple CEO ?
SJ was a NANO mananger: he was in EVERYONE’S sh-t. He was not a good CEO. He was GREAT narcissist (which is a requirement for some CEOs when it comes to pressuring your people for results). He had a reality-distortion field. Tim does not. Tim is providing results to shareholders and the board. SJ put some of those on the board (Why is Inuit still on the board and Quickbooks Apple-crapware?).
Apple is now in the appliance business. Secrecy, ain’t it a bitch?
A Wall Street stooge inserted into Apple’s management team will have devastating effects.
So who do all these people abusing Tim Cook want to replace him with? You aren’t going to get another Steve Jobs folks. Tim is doing as good a job as anyone else at that level who is put in that VERY difficult position. Steve Jobs is perhaps the toughest CEO act in history to follow. Anyone coming after him is going to pale in comparison. I don’t see a next Steve out there, do you?
If you’re going to give Jobs credit for all te success that’s happened under the Tim Cook era (which started when Jobs started taking his leaves of absence) then you have to credit Jobs for the mistakes during those times as well. Maps is one that should go under Jobs, since he allowed Eric Schmidt on the board and also reined during most of the development of Apple Maps.
I think what we’re seeing his a web hit frenzy. Sad to see MDN taking part in it.
Yes, MDN asking for quality Quality Control at Apple is so very sad. (sarcasm laced with sarcasm)
*reigned
Looking at this MacDailyNews article…
I’d say that Tim Cook and MacDailyNews *both* screwed up.
But then- nobody’s perfect…
oh my, MDN, how far you have fallen…
Yes, MDN “screwed up” by holding Apple to a standard that only Steve Jobs himself could have exceeded.
Keep it up, MDN! Expect and demand greatness!