“In Apple’s never-ending negotiations with record labels, iTunes boss Eddy Cue often played the good cop to Steve Jobs’ bad cop,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET. “But for current CEO Tim Cook, Cue may well be Mr. Fix-It.”
“In a surprising executive shuffle, Apple announced Monday that Scott Forstall, who runs software development for the iPad and iPhone, would be leaving the company, along with retail chief John Browett. Cue, an Apple employee for 23 years who was chief of iTunes since it launched in 2003, has now absorbed control of the Siri voice recognition service and the disappointing Apple Maps,” Sandoval reports. “‘There’s nobody quite like Eddy Cue at Android or any of the other competitors,’ said Bob Bauman, president and CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), the company that manages Internet rights for pro baseball and sells baseball-themed apps on iTunes. ‘Eddy is genius, brilliant, thoughtful, and tough. There’s nothing that we’ve asked for that they’ve just said, ‘Fine.””
MacDailyNews Take: An aside: Major League Baseball has been the sports leader on iOS since their first app debuted for iPhone. Say what you will about MLB commish Bud Selig, but during his reign, MLB has been a rather surprising and effective pioneer in new media (you wouldn’t think one of the “older” sports would run rings around the relative newbies (NBA, NFL) but they certainly did and continue to do so. MLB doesn’t get enough credit for creating some of the very best quality iOS apps available.
Sandoval reports, “When MobileMe, the division that oversaw Apple’s Web services and software, appeared to run hopelessly off track, it was Cue who salvaged the operation and transformed it into iCloud. That Forstall, at times a divisive personality inside Apple, is reportedly being shown the door not long after Cue was promoted and received a bonus worth $37 million, doesn’t come as a surprise to Apple watchers. One former Apple employee says Cue has a ‘high degree of social intelligence.’ That’s something many of his peers in tech and even Jobs often lacked. ”
Much info on Cue’s background and more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Eddy can’t fix it, nobody can.