I still wouldn't call this "news" as I've heard this pointed out by numerous individuals before, but I think what he's commenting on is fundamentally different

I still wouldn't call this "news" as I've heard this pointed out by numerous individuals before, but I think what he's commenting on is fundamentally different from Apple Maps. Maps' first release sucked, and they're obviously now working to improve it. On the other hand, other Apple products almost always "just get better", as do most other projects that come to mind. Sure, there are occasional bugs and gripes, growing pains, etc. but even when I used to be a big fan of Windows I noticed that they seemed to alternate between big wins and big fails. ME? Fail. XP? Win. Vista? Fail. 7? Win. 8? Fail. I'm less familiar with previous versions, but I suspect the general trend would continue fairly predictably. I'm less familiar with things like Office, so I can't speak from personal experience much there, but my point is just that Microsoft does seem to have a very strong alternation between fails and wins, which is different from simply a bad first-release.