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Apple Product Delays Have More Than Doubled Under Tim Cook's Watch, Says Report (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): Of the three major new products since Mr. Cook became chief executive in 2011, both AirPods earbuds in 2016 and last year's HomePod speaker missed Apple's publicly projected shipping dates. The Apple Watch, promised for early 2015, arrived late that April with lengthy wait times for delivery. Apple also was delayed in supplying the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, two critical accessories for its iPad Pro. The delays have contributed to much longer waits between Apple announcing a product and shipping it: an average of 23 days for new and updated products over the past six years, compared with the 11-day average over the six years prior, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Apple public statements. Longer lead times between announcement and product release have the potential to hurt Apple on multiple fronts. Delays give rivals time to react, something the company tried to prevent in the past by keeping lead times short, analysts and former Apple employees said. They can stoke customer disappointment and have cost Apple sales.
I think the point is that it's not comparing Apple vs its competitors but Apple under Cook vs Apple under Jobs.
When major form factor changes for, say, the iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 first occurred, there wasn't nearly as much of a wait compared to the iPhone X or even iPhone 7+.
Part of this can be attributed to the fact that there are simply more buyers of iPhones now than there were before. But the job of a good supply manager (and CEO, especially if that CEO used to be head of supply chain) is to make sure manufacturing can scale such that it lead times don't increase with increased demand.
To say nothing of the difference in innovation speed under Cook...