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Shake-up at Apple: Forstall Out; iOS Executive Fired For Maps Debacle?
New submitter noh8rz10 writes "Apple's Scott Forstall, who grew iOS from its inception, is departing the company. Rumors say it's because of the Maps debacle, and problems with Siri as well. Jony Ive is taking a larger human interface role, which means he may kill the skeuomorphic interfaces he hates. John Browett, head of retail, is out as well; he never won the trust of the community. What does such a major shakeup say about Tim Cook's leadership?"
Hey, quit saying "skeuomorphic" in there!
Hopefully, we'll get better UI designs
Forestall does pretty good work, but he's always been too proud to listen when someone else has a better idea. He shouldn't be working on products that are used by hundreds of millions of people all around the world.
The thought of him working directly under Tim Cook, who doesn't know much about product design, has always made me uncomfortable.
Hooray for Ive, he's possibly the best engineer I have ever heard of, except for maybe Wozniak. This is a good day for Apple.
The rats are being thrown off the sinking ship.
This is more like bilge water being pumped out of a ship, after the damage to the hull has been repaired.
[Apple] Steve's gone. Let's turn the page. We'll stop being dicks, no more lawsuits.
[Google] Sounds good. We'll give you maps with turn-by-turn navigation.
Because he had some perfectionist tendencies. That was one thing that set Apple apart from Microsoft - you might not like what they did, but they usually did it thoroughly. That seems to be falling apart a bit.
What does such a major shakeup say about Tim Cook's leadership?
He is going to lead and hold people accountable?
For example, the way the OS X Address Book attempts to resemble
a paper address book. This is pointless and stupid and the only
people it could possibly appeal to are idiots who probably don't
use a computer for anything more than surfing the web anyway.
This is the kind of crap that insults me when I see it on a computer I
paid a lot of money to buy.
If Ive gets rid of this crap, he will have my everlasting appreciation.
Also, and MUCH more important : Apple MUST quit trying to blend the
interface used by OS X with the interface used by iOS. The result of
such attempts at blending is stuff that is annoying and awful to use and
it is an insult to a user who has a modicum of intelligence. QUIT THIS
SHIT, Tim Cook, or your legacy will be that of the guy who fucked up
a good thing, and that is not a legacy anyone with honor wants.
...that Tim Cook has firmly taken the reins and is going to start running Apple the way he sees fit, with his team - not the team that was there when he took over.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
He's the one who designed all their successful products, after all.
i don't even know how to interpret that.
Apple and the trust of the community?
Apple, so far as I have seen, is either loved unconditionally, or disliked for various reasons.
Was there a part of "the community" that was waiting to be won over? Community CUPS devs?
It's a cute notion, like the way children believe in Santa Claus. But corporations are not compatible with any real sense of community. Corporations are perfect tyrannies. Real community means people who share, it's a give-and-take that enriches everyone who participates. Corporations seek only to enrich themselves. All of them, not just Apple. That's why they have to spend so much money on marketing to appear otherwise. It is not their natural undisguised apperance at all.
Fanboys aside, pragmatists aren't very fond of Apple. Pragmatists aren't suckered by hype. That is why they realize how strongly Apple resembles Microsoft in its heyday. Apple is perhaps worse - until recently Microsoft didn't so strongly control what could run on Windows the way Apple controls their walled garden. Apple is just more talented at appearing innocuous. Their marketing is more effective. No one proudly sported Windows the way some Apple fans show off their iDevices. Still doesn't change the nature of the corporation though.
And the way this cult of personality surrounding Jobs lives on long after the man's death is just plain disturbing. He was an abusive control freak and generally not a very nice guy at all. He didn't design anything. His only genius was making money. I don't see investment bankers getting this kind of love and adoration, for good reason. People like him being in charge of everything is part of why the world is so fucked up. Now lots of emotionally puerile types get all upset when you throw cold water on their hero fantasies and dare to suggest that their idol wasn't the first perfect person, that a man who appeared larger than life was still just a man. So be it.
After reading that, I realized that this was indeed true and in fact there has been an alternate philosphy besides the skeuomorphic design which is the "war on color" in some aspects of OS X (e.g., the flat gray scroll bars, the gray linen background for the virtual desktop manager, even the world map for changing the time zone). So, now I'm wondering if the skeuomorphic faction led by Forstall has lost the debate, was Ive and the other minimalist design people behind the "war on color" and if that's true, is that what we'll see in future versions of the OS with Ive leading the interface design? I'm not sure how I feel about that, I really don't like using an OS that is drab and boring, it's depressing (I actually liked Aqua for the most part, which was also Forstall's invention I guess). Either way, it's good to know that Apple isn't afraid of rocking the boat still. That skeuomorphic crap might have been good for increasing everyone's vocabulary with regards to interface design, but it was annoying as hell to use.
Now, if only Apple would admit they screwed up the document versioning system beyond repair and give us a proper "Save As..." since the dawn of the computer (or thereabouts) I would consider Apple as having fully realized the error of their ways and moving decidedly in a less terrible direction. But alas, Federhigi is still in charge and they haven't brought Serlet back from retirement unfortunately.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Look, it's bad when people on TV use Siri and iMaps as a joke for a bunch of different shows. I've seen it on commericals, sitcoms, and of course stand up comedy.
Granted it's more Siri related, but the iMaps get said a bit also.
Siri i can understand not working, we are talking speech recognition, but a map program? That is seriously bad.
Lets see how they fix it though.
Be seeing you...
It's well known that Scott Forstall didn't get along with the others. He's been called a "mini-Steve (Jobs)" and described as "maddeningly political":
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html
If he was ousted, it's probably due more to the others thinking he's an asshole. The Maps debacle provides a convenient excuse, but I doubt it's the real reason behind this. This is just another political backstabbing, that's all.
Indeed. The maps fiasco is more like something that came out of Redmond than out of Apple. I can well imagine Ballmer going "So it doesn't work? Well fuck it. Release it anyways." Basically he's done that on a few occasions. But Jobs, egomaniacal control freak that he was, would never have allowed it to go to production like that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Fanboys aside, pragmatists aren't very fond of Apple. Pragmatists aren't suckered by hype. That is why they realize how strongly Apple resembles Microsoft in its heyday. Apple is perhaps worse - until recently Microsoft didn't so strongly control what could run on Windows the way Apple controls their walled garden. Apple is just more talented at appearing innocuous. Their marketing is more effective. No one proudly sported Windows the way some Apple fans show off their iDevices. Still doesn't change the nature of the corporation though.
Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden? Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
If you check SEC company executive stock records, one can find that Scott Forstall has sold off his Apple Stock options earlier this year, in preparation for a possible departure. His departure has actually been planned for several weeks, but was not announced until today along with the departure of John Browett, who was Sr. VP for Retails operations for Apple.
The current executive reorganization of Mr. Forstall's duties have been spread over several senior Apple executives, distributing responsibilities according to their current function. Read the press release to see the respective changes.
Some people have speculated that Scott Forstall might be the ultimate successor to Steve Jobs, since he came with Steve from NeXT computer back to Apple in 1997. He has been involved in the development of Mac OS X, including heading the Leopard OS development and development of the Aqua user interface in OS X, along with leading the development of iPhone and later iOS system software since 2004.
I don't know what Scott Forstall plans to do, but there is some speculation that he might be involved a project with a former Apple engineer. Needless to say, he probably has a non-compete clause with Apple, he will have respect for a while given his critical involvement with key Apple products like the iPhone, iPad and iOS system software.
I would not be surprised to see Scott come back to Apple sometime in the future, but he has earned a well-earned sabbatical given his recent efforts.
Scott has been messing up. The interface designs are getting out of control on iOS and OS X, and hopefully Ive will fix that. Maps and Siri still don't work as advertised (though they are getting better all the time). I don't think Scott will be missed. It makes a LOT of sense to reorganize how they did, though Mansfeld though should have retired......
The other guy, good riddance. His managing of the Apple Stores is questionable to say the least.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
They have so much money it's sinking the ship.
This means Jack Shit, it's standard mokey politics for an incoming boss, sack a few high profile monkeys and the other monkeys will fall into line. A boss who isn't noticed and can't hand pick his entorage is a figure head, not a leader.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Oh I don't know, Steve was fairly slimy. His treatment of Chrissann Brennan, for example, or how he cheated Woz out of money when Steve was at Atari.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
From the pictures I saw, I know of one ship (if you can call it that) that should be sunk.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
He let Siri go live. In fact, he saved it for himself to announce in the last keynote he did. The key distinction there is that he set expectations appropriately with Siri. He introduced it as a beta that was still in need of work, but that he thought it was ready to show and to let others use. He explained that there would be issues, but that they'd work them out. Had they done the same with Maps, there would not have been such a big issue. But because Forstall showed off a perfect demo and claimed the usual "just works" level of polish, anything less than that would mean a big disappointment. And it was a disappointment for many people when it didn't just work.
Honestly, Steve Jobs let several things go live that shouldn't have. Remember the MobileMe release? Heads rolled over that, with one Senior Vice President getting the boot. That was actually a much bigger deal at the time than this Maps thing is now.
This means Jack Shit, it's standard mokey politics for an incoming boss, sack a few high profile monkeys and the other monkeys will fall into line. A boss who isn't noticed and can't hand pick his entorage is a figure head, not a leader.
When you are insecure and/or can't earn the genuine respect and admiration of those around you by means of your talent, expertise, and inspiring leadership, I suppose you might become desperate enough to resort to such Machiavellian tactics as this.
If he can't be better than a monkey, he wants to be the biggest monkey. What a shame that so many don't understand this is not real respect. Not even close. Of course it's not realistic to expect basic wisdom from the kind of dehumanized sociopaths who tend to run corporations, but I can dream.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I've heard iphone users complain that they can't get swype and can't get Google Maps or turn-by-turn navigation or any number of things that are on Android...
iOS 6 turn-by-turn navigation puts Garmin's app to shame.
The difference was not using Siri was less of a problem. Decent maps and map functionality have become a requirement for many smartphone users.
Because he had some perfectionist tendencies. That was one thing that set Apple apart from Microsoft - you might not like what they did, but they usually did it thoroughly. That seems to be falling apart a bit.
Sort of like how mobileme worked amazingly well out of the box. Or how about siri working well with accents or just in general with a variety of voices. Same deal with the antennas on the iphone 4. Apple has a fairly long history of hardware issues on their first version of any new hardware. Steve Jobs being a perfectionist didn't prevent this.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Have you ever considered the possibility that some people actually *value* a walled garden?
Some people highly value smoking crack. This alone is not proof of merit.
Like nearly everyone who isn't a tech geek? Which is like 99% of the people buying these devices?
If you are claiming that only "tech geeks" could possibly appreciate unrestricted freedom of choice, that is interesting. I would be willing to entertain your reasoning, but so far I haven't seen it. Personally, I think it's a nice euphamistic way of saying that most people are far too stupid to be trusted with choices. The funny thing about that, is that if stupidity is universally expected, it tends to become the norm. When it's viewed as pathological, it tends to be limited to only the few who really can't do better.
I also have doubts that it's healthy to design everything for the absolute beginner, rather than viewing "newbie" as a transitory and most temporary stage along the path to at least some small degree of competence. But it's difficult to have this conversation around here. Few seem to recognize that "small degree of competence" does not mean "expert" due to some strange tendency to go to extremes. It's a bit mysterious, since it's inconsistent with any contact with reality and its myriad shades of grey.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
To be fair, nukes don't so much sink ships as move the surrounding ocean above them.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
The whole point you are making happened many years ago, arguably before Steve came back. Every "innovation" Apple has had over the past ten years was someone else's idea given just enough refinement and advertising to get consumers to like it.
Smartphone, that was IBM, Microsoft, Sony, and RIM long before Apple. Apple just managed to consumerize ideas from the corporate tool world. The same goes for tablets. Microsoft never moved their primary UI to be compatible before now with touch and stylus interaction, but Gates kept evangelizing the concept until Jobs actually went and had a regular OS trimmed and locked down to where touch was easy for the uninitiated. Even the iPod was nowhere near the first or best MP3 player, but Apple managed to leverage iTunes and advertising, never superior hardware, to sell lots of hardware. Ultrabook (MBA)? Fujitsu, Sony, NEC, and Toshiba had powerful fully spec'd ultra compact laptops available overseas for 5 or 6 years prior (Dynamism was the primary importer for US buyers).
Apple is not losing their edge, they are simply having to compete now that other OEMs and software developers have had time to develop consumer, rather than professionally oriented products, in markets which have been gestating for several years. Apple has never done well competing on even ground.
Remember that the dehumanized sociopaths running companies are competing against other sociopaths. If a new CEO shows any weakness, the other sociopaths will conspire to oust them. Just as Kim Jong-Un had to purge a bunch of his father's old advisers in order to solidify his grip on North Korea, so too must new CEOs purge a board member or two in order to prove they're the boss.
It's not about what's best for the company. People who genuinely have the company's interests at heart won't be able to compete in that world. When you realize what sort of people these are, and what sort of world they live in, it's utterly unsurprising that their actions make no sense to us. They're practically a different species.
Down 15% for good reason, it was overvalued. The entire market is. The Dow shouldn't be above 10k as long as unemployment is above 8%.
OR we do not really know what happened are are making an assumption?
We do know that IOS 6 sucked. It had power issues, maps were unusable, and Sirii still has issues. To this day people love putitng pics on facebook of IPhones misinterpretting things in embarrasing conversations.
I would fire several people too. Not to show who is boss and be a badass, but because that should not have been released PERIOD. Did they do any QA at all? WTF. I could be wrong too and Cook could have demanded it and ignored issues but this would be likely a good termination ... well except for the guy who got canned.
http://saveie6.com/
No, they didn't want "more information on top of money". It's been explicitly stated what they wanted - google branding on the maps application, and latitude support. Apple said no. Google is in NO WAY at fault, Steve Job's ego is the sole reason that turn-by-turn never made it into IOS.
Oh, you're definitely correct, but you also need to remember that the Maps issues getting the most press are the ones where the new 3D view is showing something bizarre, like the Brooklyn Bridge looking like a sine curve or something of that sort. If you rendered those issues moot by having set the bar a bit lower, you would have taken a good chunk of the wind out of the sails of the people complaining. Though you'd still have people complaining about location data being incorrect, the volume would not have been nearly as loud without the other issues to reinforce them.
I'm not suggesting Maps is bug-free or something of that sort. All I'm suggesting is that they could have handled the situation a lot better than they did, and that that's exactly what Steve Jobs did when he last released something that he knew was buggy.
"The iShip is syncing..."
Down 15% because the wall street analysts are playing shenanigans. Amazon posts a $274 million LOSS, and there isn't a single article in the news about it. Apple posts profits that are a little bit less than the made up numbers the analysts pulled out of their asses, and all the news sources practically shit themselves over the 'disappointing' news, conveniently ignoring the fact that the record 8.2 billion in profits happen to be 26% up over the year ago quarter and their best 4th quarter ever.
Forstall sounds like he was kind of a cancer and his excess skeumorphism ruptured an otherwise seamless aesthetic that is a big part of why a lot of people but Apple products. Browett had a bad record and was never a good fit for Apple IMO and his idiocy with trying to draw down clerk hours to save a few bucks demonstrates a cultural disjoint between him and Apple's obsession with customer experience. If your customers don't feel special they will not pay premium margins. A discount retail approach would convert their hugely powerful retail outlets into cost centers.
The Maps issues aren't related to anything but the quality of data as far as I'm aware. I have no idea if that's his fault, or if it was his fault to put Maps on prematurely, but strategically I think Apple had to divest Google from their platform there at some point.
(%i1) factor(777353);
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Using CAPITALS to emphasize RANDOM words in your POST doesn't make the post any more USEFUL. Apple DIDN'T want to PAY (alright, enough of that) for a feature from a service Google sells, Apple was paying for the mapping, but not paying for turn-by-turn navigation and wanted that data for free. Google set a price for this (obviously quite valuable) service, and Apple decided to sacrifice pretty much their entire design philosophy rather than pay Google anything, and released a half-baked clusterfuck.
Google didn't withhold anything from Apple, just set prices for various aspects of their service. If Apple didn't want to pay and instead piss off their own customers with an inferior replacement, that's all Apple's doing. But you'd have to lack any kind of business sense to think that Google should have just given Apple this data for free.
I would have kept Google Maps, as would have most rational businesses concerning a major feature of their core product that works great and is exactly what the customers want, rather than move it in-house and release it before it's ready on a new flagship product.
Down 15% for good reason, it was overvalued.
A superficial claim devoid of analysis. A company that consistently turns in 20% annual growth would normally be rewarded with a far higher earnings multiple than Apple's current 14. This is a clear signal: the smart money does not expect Apple's earnings to continue to grow at anything like that. In fact, even 5% annual growth would be worth a multiple of 25 to 30 if there was any confidence it would continue. A multiple of 14 in fact reflects a significant perception that Apple's earnings will shrink. I'm with that camp, and that's not just wishful thinking, it's because Android and at-cost products from Google and Amazon mean the high margin party is over. This is plain enough to see.
BTW, that's all just elementary risk/reward analysis. It's not hard. Everybody who consistently makes money trading stocks understands it well.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Not to show who is boss and be a badass, but because that should not have been released PERIOD. Did they do any QA at all? WTF..
Seriously? From the debacle that is the product just released at $work, with huge rounds of all-levels-of-management congratulations for getting the product out the door, I'd say that nothing matters other than the date. Not functionality, not quality, not employee retention (12-16 hour days, 7 days a week, for 3 months?). Nothing other than that date. It was going to be delivered come hell or high water.
If it doesn't pan out, someone may lose their job. Maybe a few people. But probably not the same people who decided to deliver on a particular date regardless of readiness.
If Apple is anything like this, it doesn't matter whether QA was finished their job or not. A particular event was scheduled, an announcement had to be made, the product had to be delivered, whether ready or not.
i've been working with unix since the early 1980's. almost every engineer i personally know from that era is using a mac. it has nothing to do with being a fanboy... it's about the best non-server unix environment.
If we were to replace the word "computer" with the word "washing machine" or "refrigerator," then you might start to see how people don't even _want_ to seek even the smallest amount of computer competence. You're essentially asking them to re-install the OS on their washing machine, or re-wire the heating coils of their dryer for some abstract goal of "increased knowledge" and "freedom".
The computer is an appliance. You press a button, it sends an e-mail. You press another one, it plays music for you. If it breaks, you call someone to fix it or you toss it to the curb and get a new one. I'm not saying these people are stupid, I'm just saying they have different priorities.
Actually, the story I've heard from fairly authoritative sources is that what Google wanted was the text "Google" on the Maps display so that people knew that the data was coming from Google.
Apple did not like that and it was a deal breaker for them.
No sig. Move along - nothing to see here.
The "smart money" thought the same thing when the stock was at $50. Now its north of $500. The smart money aint too smart.
We apologize again for the faults in iOS 6. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Microsoft is/was evil.
Google only knows evil because of their advertising mindset.
Apple is evil because you can't do whatever the hell you want.
Linux sucks because there's no unified vision of how things are supposed to work (both in UIs and APIs).
What am I supposed to use? FreeDOS? WebOS? AmigaOS?
Apple and Microsoft couldn't give a flying fuck about the average person figuring out the full range of possibilities that computers offer. Any more than the head of Maytag stay up at night with nightmares of everyone suddenly deciding to become washing machine mechanics in their spare time.
There is no conspiracy. There is no great shadow hovering above and preventing people from waking up to what their computer can do. Most of them have a pretty good idea of what computers can do. They often don't have the vocabulary or means to make it happen, but if you have ever dealt with a user figuring out a new task they tend to have a very realistic idea of what is possible (at least in the abstract) and then once they figure out their new thing that go back to ignoring everything else.
Because there is an opportunity cost to computers. And most people don't enjoy paying that cost. They get far more enjoyment out of playing in a local baseball league or building model trains or learning to cook or take dance lessons or just watching movies with friends.
Every single possible roadblock could be removed and the vast majority of the population would not care and could not be made to care. Because they are busy doing more interesting (to them) things. And for people who are already interested in computers there are no roadblocks worth speaking of.
You don't understand the first thing about stocks, do you? Of course the pricing of the company will follow all the information about the company, not just the formal quarterly earning announcements.
Amazon, for instance, told everybody that they were spending massive amounts of money in expanding its infrastructure (mostly, building large warehouses near urban areas, instead of shipping from Nevada to San Francisco for instance).
It's not a shenanigan, it's just people quite sensibly pricing the stock to match the news. For instance, Amazon let people know about the expansion plans, the news was widely disseminated and analyzed, etc.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The Apple Washing machine will only allow you to wash blue jeans and black turtlenecks. You can buy an extension in the store to wash white T-Shirts. The app for washing black jeans or red turtlenecks was rejected because it was a conflict of interest for Apple.
I'm not surprised that you got modded so highly for the old 'everyone above me on the corporate ladder is a sociopath' meme, as it certainly sits well among the 'downtrodden' Engineering types so common around these parts.
Could it also be possible that when part of a hierarchical organization fucks up really badly, someone near the top of that part of the organization should be ultimately held responsible, because it was that person's *job* to ensure that they'd hired the right people under them and put the right processes in place in order to avoid publicly embarrassing failures?
Or does believing that bit of 'business common sense' also make me a sociopath?
I've heard Android users complain that they can't tell which of thirty apps with intentionally deceptive names is the actual app they're trying to get, and that their 6 month old handset only supports a year-old version of Android.
Walled gardens and totally open platforms each have their advantages and disadvantages, and users will have different preferences based on their needs. What a shock, right?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
To technical people, the average /.er, the computer is a tool. You code something, the computer does it.
Well said. But consider that to average people, the average /.er is a tool.
Not everyone finds spending their time geeking out on their phone to be rewarding, interesting, or something they have any real interest in doing. That isn't smoking crack, it's simply a different priority.
Most people limit the amount of cognitive overhead they have to shoulder when it comes to things they don't find terribly interesting or important. In the case of people who prefer a walled garden for their devices, this can be one of those things. One place to go for software, one pace to go for support, and they don't have to waste time thinking about all those options.
Some people do this with clothing or food. I know a lot of geeks who wear essentially the same outfit on a daily basis because they just don't care enough about clothes to bother thinking about it past "does it pass the sniff test?" I know a lot of people who eat roughly the same thing for breakfast every day because they just want fuel for their body and don't want to have to think about what they're eating. There's nothing wrong with doing this, and we all actually do this to some degree or another,
Let me throw a challenge to you: I want you to think about the clothes you're wearing. Think about the materials used - where did they come from? How are they made? Why were those materials chosen instead of some other set? What about the design - who designed each piece, and why did they make the choices they did (buttons vs. snaps, handling of seams, style of collar etc.)? What were their influences - what was the evolution of each item and how it came about from a series of iterations throughout the history of couture? What about the colors - what kind of dye did they use and why? What was your decision process when you bought it, what about your decision process when you picked it out to wear today?
Is it fair for me to say you're smoking crack because you probably don't geek out on fashion?
To you, I'm guessing clothing is just something you wear because you have to and you don't want to think about much.. To people who prefer a walled garden for their various devices, gadgets are just something they use because they need something to do that stuff, and they don't want to think about much.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.