“Apple’s postponing its much-touted Group FaceTime feature in iOS 12 was a surprise — but really only because the decision was made so close to launch,” William Gallagher reports for AppleInsider. “These days it seems that there is always a feature or a new piece of hardware that gets announced only to be severely delayed.”
“It’s not a new thing, though: Apple has publicly done this many times. In private, the company’s internal deadlines have extended on devices right back to the original Mac,” Gallagher reports. “Andy Hertzfeld, one of the key creators of the Mac, is quoted in Apple Confidential 2.0 that:’We had been saying, We’re going to finish in six months’ for two years.'”
“More recently, Apple has announced dates and then sometimes only just barely kept them. Most people who bought the 2012 27-inch iMac didn’t get it until 2013, for instance. It was announced as coming by the end of the year but comparatively few shipped and they did so in late December,” Gallagher reports. “Similarly, in September 2014 the company announced Apple Watch and said we’d be able to buy it on April 24, 2015. When that day came, you could certainly pay your money but stocks sold out so fast that even early risers were being told delivery would be in June. Or July. Or August.”
You can’t really criticize Apple for delays when part of the problem is just that fewer things remain secret now,” Gallagher writes. “You can, though, wonder how consistently the company misses the Christmas market when it has new products that practically guaranteed big sellers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In the post-Steve Jobs era, Apple lacks the discipline to either ship on time or keep quiet until they are ready to ship*.
*We’re not talking about attempts to freeze the market. We’re talking about missing Christmas and ridiculously premature preannouncements like AirPower.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s AirPower charger to finally launch with the new 2018 iPhones for around $150 – August 14, 2018
Samsung’s Wireless Charging Duo is a poor man’s Apple AirPower – August 10, 2018
Apple’s long-delayed AirPower charging mat due in September; includes custom Apple chip running stripped down version of iOS – June 21, 2018
Under ‘operations genius’ Tim Cook, product delays and other problems are no longer unusual for Apple – November 20, 2017
Apple delays HomePod release to early 2018 – November 17, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook: The ‘operations genius’ who never has enough products to sell at launch – October 23, 2017
Apple reveals HomePod smart home music speaker – June 5, 2017
Apple is misplaying the hand Steve Jobs left them – November 30, 2016
Apple delays AirPod rollout – October 26, 2016
Apple delays release of watchOS 2 due to bug – September 16, 2015
Apple delays HomeKit launch until autumn – May 14, 2015
Apple delays production of 12.9-inch ‘iPad Pro’ in face of overwhelming iPhone 6/Plus demand – October 9, 2014
Tim Cook’s mea culpa: iMac launch should have been postponed – April 24, 2013
Obviously, Apple’s autumn iMac launch was badly botched – March 19, 2013
Used to be Microsoft was the only producer of “vapor ware”
Microsoft still is, they announced stuff like the Courier tablet that never even got close to being an actual product, it was nothing but renderings, not even a prototype. Apple is experiencing delays. Microsoft announced stuff they knew they were never ever going to ship.
Particularly annoying since group chat was available in iChat AV more than decade ago….
Someone posted recently that the difference is that this is end-to-end encrypted.
People will only take so much before jumping ship. But Apple doesn’t give a shit.
Jumping ship requires having a better place to jump to. For all its annoying faults, MacOS is still better than any currently available alternative.
No-one gives a shyt, Trondud.
Yet another feature/new product that got “Cooked”.
VIVA TIMMY!!!!
Better delayed and functional than ship an alpha version.
People have short memories. Plenty got delayed when Steve was with us. Remember the white iPhones?
Please do enlighten us with with a list of such cases under Steve.. I bet they were far fewer than Pipeline’s list.
I’m sure you posted that response on your PowerBook G5.
Nice try you Pipeline apologist.
The PowerBook G5 was ONLY a rumor, and thank God it was just that.. instead we got Intel Macs.
Steve announced very few products that were delayed, as far as I know. Unlike your beloved current Pipeline CEO who in my opinion should NEVER announce products only to deliver several months after. It’s like an expected sour surprise.
Listen you gay hating phuck, your anti Tim Cook shtick is getting so old, it’s $1 trillion record breaking old
Just ohuck off and get phucked you phobic phuck
From here we hear the disconcerting, tearing and pitiful screams that come from the insides of your mother, cursing, abhorring, lamenting, hating and crying with nothing to comfort her, the day she bore you.
She never imagined that those nine months she had you in his womb, conceived with love with a man (not with another female), would be the most wasted and hated time of his life, bringing to the world a totally useless and unproductive, totally nocive and harmful to the human species.
LOL!
They need to Bloody update Quicktime.