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Apple Has a New Cook

• lurkinggrue 14y ago
  Steve jobs did let Ping and Mobile Me go out the doors. Oh yes, and the Apple Cube.
  • aaronbrethorst 14y ago
    I thought the Cube was cool. The Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power iMacs on the other hand? ugh. http://daysofourlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/crazy-imac-designs-from-2001/ http://daysofourlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/crazy-imac-des...
    • Evbn 14y ago
      Obviously their massive sales numbers were unimpeded by their horrible color choice that did not affect the device function at all.
      • batista 14y ago
        Unimpeded? The color choice MADE the sales.
  • baddox 14y ago
    Neither Ping nor Mobile Me replaced previous crucial functionality.
    • d503 14y ago
      E-mail is pretty crucial to me, and some MobileMe users couldn't access their mail for days. http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/?RSS&NewsID=22112 http://www.macworld.co.uk/macsoftware/news/?RSS&NewsID=2...
    • panic 14y ago
      MobileMe replaced .Mac, which provided crucial functionality like email. There were many fewer people affected, but the situation is similar.
    • jpxxx 14y ago
      To quibble: Mobile Me was a thorough replacement for iSync.
      • Evbn 14y ago
        At a higher price.
    • pooriaazimi 14y ago
      But iCloud (which he "blessed" and introduced at stage) replaced Mobile Me and killed iDisk (wiping a couple million web pages off the Internet), keychain-syncing, MobileMe gallery, iWork.com, ...
  • robterrell 14y ago
    Wait, what was wrong with the cube, aside from price? I have that is still running today.
    • Evbn 14y ago
      It had infamous case cracking problems, like the white ibook did later.
• nameiscarl 14y ago
  "Yes, some may raise the argument that the reason why Jobs was rarely in situations to apologize, was because, for the most part (minus Siri), he pushed excellent and complete product" Please, macosx releases have an history of being bug ridden. So much that one upgrade was free (the first one, if I recall correctly). The man built his own legend by rewriting history and bullying press. And selling computers, phones and walkmans, too.
  • kmfrk 14y ago
    A recent example is the change in MBP battery life with Lion; check the first bar chart in http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os-x-battery-life-analysis-from-snow-leopard-to-mountain-lion http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os-x-battery-life-ana....
  • batista 14y ago
    >Please, macosx releases have an history of being bug ridden. Compared to what other OS that was "bug free" on release? Also, "bug ridden"? Please. Some people had issues with some features (and in some hardware setups). For most people it was a smooth ride. >So much that one upgrade was free (the first one, if I recall correctly). Yes, the FIRST version of a new OS, adopted by very few people at the time (most still run OS 9 still for one year more), and put out by a company with 1/1000 the resources of later Apple, was buggy... >The man built his own legend by rewriting history and bullying press. And selling computers, phones and walkmans, too. And changing several markets profoundly. Like the PC industry (taking Apple from 2% to nearly 20%), the music industry (iTunes, the #1 retailer in the US), the music player industry (made mp3 players a mainstream phenomenon, still holds 70%+ of the market), the phone industry (the iPhone was a game changer, at the time Google was not only not even started on their touch Android thing, but Eric Schidt appeared on stage at the iPhone introduction), the mobile app industry (made a huge quality jump from BS Java and Symian apps of the past, and a massively bigger marketplace), and the tablet industry (made tablets from a nerd niche and a tiny market to a huge success, still commands 70%+ of the market). Also, "Bullying press"? Like doing what? I call BS. It would be interesting to hear your ideas how somebody staring with a nearly bankrupt company, with 2% market share of the desktop/laptop market "bullies the press" or gets to the most valuable company of earth. From your comment it seems like it all is some 'saleman trick' or some mass hypnosis...
• amirmc 14y ago
  "Cook didn’t think the iPhone needed to remain at 3.5" 4:3 forever (as made plain with the iPhone 5)." Does the OP really think that Jobs didn't know about the next iteration of iPhone (or any of Apple's other upcoming products)? He stepped down as CEO just over a year ago and the iPhone 5 was announced only recently. Designing, prototyping, iterating, building and shipping stuff takes time.
• snowwrestler 14y ago
  To my memory, Jobs did publicly apologize for the Mobile Me problems. He also responded to public pressure and changed direction on allowing native apps in the iPhone, with a public letter linked on the homepage of Apple.com.
• steve8918 14y ago
  I hate how everyone has decidedly become a Steve Jobs expert, so I won't even begin to make a comment or guess on what Jobs would or would not have done. But it's suffice to say that Tim Cook's apology really isn't something that's so mindblowing. The debacle over Apple Maps is so huge that Cook had no choice but to apologize. People around the world are not only outraged by how inferior Apple Maps is, but they are now ridiculing it, to the point where many believe it could actually impact sales of the iPhone 5, and drastically slow down migration to iOS 6. Someone had to do something to quell the outrage, and for something of this magnitude, that someone had to be the CEO. It's pretty coincidental that another huge debacle, the NFL replacement ref situation, both came to a head in the same week. Roger Goodell, also had to issue an apology to fans as well, for letting the situation get so out of control that it affected the quality and reputation of the NFL. It's the exact same playbook (pun intended) as Tim Cook's.
  • andrevan 14y ago
    Yes, someone had to do something, except Cook /hasn't/ done anything except put out a shitty map app. Unless you count apologizing and pointing to Bing Maps as doing something. Why not tell people to buy a Microsoft phone as well?
• lazerwalker 14y ago
  The thing is, the map apology letter wasn't "something out of a new playbook". When Apple dropped the price of the original iPhone $200 two months after it went on sale, people were pissed. Steve wrote a public letter of apology (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter). It was in many ways a similar situation: Apple did something that hurt early adopters, and the CEO offered an explanation as well as a heartfelt apology to the effect that everyone expects better from Apple. The closing paragraphs are even remarkably similar: > We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple. vs > Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.
• jpxxx 14y ago
  Oh good gravy. While it's wonderful that an apology of sorts was offered, that's not unusual in Apple's history. They blew this, they blew this, they blew this. They failed to reset customer expectations, walked directly into a woodchipper with a serious platform regression, and gave their competitors a talking point that will actually stick for the next few years. The only interesting bit of Apple Kremlinology that can be engaged in here: did they intentionally portray the maps as an advance in an attempt to keep iphone 5 pre-orders up? Because there is no way Apple had convinced themselves this was launch worthy internally. They cannot have become that self-unaware already. I imagine this apology was written months ago.
  • zevyoura 14y ago
    Actually, since the maps coverage is pretty good in California, I wouldn't be that surprised if they didn't realize just how far behind Google their POI data was internationally. Also, even if they did realize this, I don't think they would gone forward so eagerly if they realized how intense the backlash was going to be.
    • jpxxx 14y ago
      I don't know... it is interesting that they have a vastly superior Maps system in China now, and a relatively high quality set for the West Coast. (edit: areas of extreme competitive importance) But I can't believe that they would go toe-for-toe on the map client feature set without similar attention being paid to overall database quality. They've licensed dozens of data sources, they've bought entire companies, they've been working on this for years... I think they pulled the trigger for a variety of reasons and then braced for impact. This change wasn't taken lightly.
      • jimbokun 14y ago
        "...it is interesting that they have a vastly superior Maps system in China now, and a relatively high quality set for the West Coast." And this is exactly what Jobs would have led with. He would have pointed out any and all areas where Apple's Maps performed better than Google, before segueing into how they are addressing the remaining problems. I bet he would have some clever statistics on just how often Apple's maps are right. And he would have tons of examples of mistakes on Google's maps, to create some doubt about whether Apple was really worse (remember all of the other phones that Jobs tried to use to demonstrate that iPhone wasn't the only phone suffering from "death-grip" issues during antenna-gate?). I sure miss him.
• gfodor 14y ago
  For a CEO, it doesn't matter just weither or not you apologize for a mistake, but what mistakes you apologize for, and what mistakes you simply correct but do not openly apologize for. Jobs had a tendency to do the latter. He would rarely admit Apple's mistakes verbally, but would correct the problem as swiftly as possible. This strategy (obviously) worked pretty well for Apple's bottom line, and it's hard to argue that it upset many customers. Now, I don't have access to the information Apple does, but for this particular situation it seemed much less important that Apple make a apology vs. just improving the product rapidly. You apologize when people feel wronged, slighted, cheated, or otherwise emotionally distraught by your actions. In this case, there are issues with Maps. But when Maps leads you to the wrong destination, do you feel emotionally hurt by Apple? In my experience, no, you realize the computer messed up and you look at the map and correct it. There's a certain level of tolerance people can have for this type of error they cannot have, for example, when their phones cannot get reception or drop calls due to the antenna. Beyond this, this is a problem that can be rapidly fixed if Apple dedicated a massive amount of resources to it. As people use Maps, there is a ton of data being collected and lots of low hanging fruit being revealed. The first several months after launch will surely shake most of the major issues out. Also, I'm absolutely stunned Cook would refer people to other apps (of their competitors!) instead. This is really a punch to the gut for shareholders (disclosure: which I am not) as it looks like they are admitting defeat and willing to concede mindshare for mapping applications. A much better approach to solving this would be to acknowledge the problem, less apologetically, but more importantly, become transparent with the rate at which issues are being fixed. Publish some metrics that show how hard Apple is working on things being fixed. Push an update to the app that highlights these improvements. Make people realize Apple is putting all of its energy into addressing the problem, and that progress is being made each day. Or, do what Jobs did, and just deflect criticism while the engineers fix the problems for a few weeks. Eventually everyone will forget about it, Maps will be the best mapping experience on iOS, and it will become a distant memory. Knowing when to take these paths is important and IMHO it is not a good sign that Cook went down this road for this particular issue.
  • kristiandupont 14y ago
    I agree with what you say, except for wrong directions being a minor issue. A very typical use case for me is meeting somebody at a place I haven't been before. I've frequently trusted Google maps to take me there and it has never sent me to the wrong place. Sometimes it doesn't know the place I am looking for which is acceptable but the thought of ending up in a completely different location, with people waiting for me, seems like a much bigger problem than bad reception. I would not just shrug and correct the wrong information, I would be furious. And the derived problem from this is given the knowledge that there are some problems, I would never trust Apple maps unless I know where I am going anyway.
• joejohnson 14y ago
  This is fucking stupid and wrong for a number of reasons. It is incorrect to think that Steve Jobs wasn't involved in Maps and the iPhone 5. He worked at Apple almost until he died, and these new releases from Apple were in the works while Steve was around.
• seunghomattyang 14y ago
  Cook took the opportunity to reflect upon the lessons he learned from Jobs before his death last October, explaining that the founder never wanted Cook to dwell on what he would have wanted after he died. Instead, Jobs wanted Cook to avoid thinking about the past and instead look to the future, focusing on creating the next great thing. "When he called me to his home to talk about being the CEO and subsequently the discussions we had, he told me, 'I witnessed what happened at Disney when Walt passed away,'" Cook said. "He said that people would go to meetings, and all sit around and talk about, what would Walt have done? How would he view this? And he looked at me with those intense eyes that only he had, and he told me to never do that, to never ask what he would do. Just do what's right. And so I'm doing that." [1] [1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/apple-ceo-tim-cook-steve-taught-me-that-the-joy-is-in-the-journey/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/apple-ceo-tim-cook-stev...
• zalzane 14y ago
  I don't think that Apple should have pulled the apology card for this. Apologizing on this scale will surely help customer frustration, but it's not necessarily something you can do very often. While apologizing may have a positive effect, to be honest the problems with the maps app really weren't -that- bad. It's not like the antenna issue where nobody could use their phone if they held it wrong. They really should have saved the apology card for mending an issue much more dire. Now that they've used it up, they can't really publicly apologize for anything for quite a few years lest their brand become tainted.
  • cageface 14y ago
    to be honest the problems with the maps app really weren't -that- bad It's astonishing that people keep saying this even after the CEO has taken the almost unprecedented step of issuing a formal apology. Maybe the new maps were ok for you, but they're clearly a disaster for a lot of users and well below Apple's usual standard. Apple fans are doing them a disservice by refusing to admit and address their weaknesses.
    • zalzane 14y ago
      Looks like I omitted a word in my original post, I meant to say that the fallout from maps wasn't that bad. People can still replace their maps app with google or bing or whoever's map application. The problems with the iOS maps aren't a showstopper for the entire platform like the antenna issues were. There were a lot more people angry over the antenna issues than over the maps issues, so I don't really see how the apology was warranted.
      • cageface 14y ago
        Presumably nobody knows more about this problem than Tim Cook at this point and he saw fit to issue an apology I'm sure he very much would have preferred not to give. You don't imagine that your own anecdotal experience gives you special insight here, do you?
• halayli 14y ago
  I think the OP came up with a conclusion without evidence and walked backwards to prove his point.
• andrevan 14y ago
  Why are we apologizing for and defending Tim Cook? The fact is that the difference between Cook and Jobs wasn't that Cook apologized for putting out an incomplete product -- it's that he would put that product out to begin with. Jobs was infamous for signing off on and testing his products himselves. This version of Maps would clearly never have been released by Jobs -- that's why he would have never apologized for it.
  • Evbn 14y ago
    The hagiography of Jobs.hasn't been approved by the Pope yet. So we don't have to ignore Jobs' mistakes yet.