Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither Ping nor Mobile Me replaced previous crucial functionality.
To quibble: Mobile Me was a thorough replacement for iSync.
At a higher price.
Apple Has a New Cook
41–50 of 51 posts
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#42For 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 t…
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…
I've always double-checked my Google maps results to make sure they make sense before actually using them. There have been numerous times where it didn't correctly interpret my query and gave me directions to somewhere else. Typical problems include differences between street suffixes like St., Ave., Dr., or directions like E. and W.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#43For 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 t…
> 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. If I miss something important because the directions seemed correct overall but were in fact wrong, then not only do I get emotionally hurt, there could be real life damages. Not just missing a meeting or lunch date but imagine bein…
I call shenanigans.
Google Maps turn-by-turn has, on several occasions, tried to take me the wrong way down a one way street. You cannot just "TRUST" an app and outsource responsibility for your own punctuality and navigation.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#44I 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…
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.
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.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. If I miss something important because the directions seemed correct overall but were in fact wrong, then not only do I get emotionally hurt, there could be real life damages. Not just missing a meeting or lunch date but imagine bein…
I don't think I would ever "trust" a map application from any vendor in the way you describe. What happens if your battery dies? What happens if you drop your device and it breaks? How are you going to cope? Are you going to miss your 'once-in-a-lifetime' job interview? The sort of dependency you describe ("emotionally hurt", "life damages") is foreign to me.
I mount my phone in my car and it is connected to car charger constantly. With hands-free bluetooth taking calls and playing music, it is a fantastic setup. It used to be that P(Gmaps being wrong) P(phone breaking).
I drove from FL to UT and back a couple of years ago using only my iPhone for directions. I did not get lost once, even though we went through twenty different inner-cities and camped out in National Parks for weeks. Currently Apple Maps has my house city and my work location wrong. I live in a heavily populated county in Florida (Pinellas) and if my local directions are so wrong, I don't know how wrong the remote destinations will be.
I can understand why you don't need to trust your GPS or care much about directions if you've lived in the area for long or have good public transport. But just like many people rely on cellphones for voice calls, many people rely on GPS that comes with cellphones. I can accept change if it is better, not worse. I'm used to my cellphone GPS being correct. I'm not used to it being wrong.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. If I miss something important because the directions seemed correct overall but were in fact wrong, then not only do I get emotionally hurt, there could be real life damages. Not just missing a meeting or lunch date but imagine bein…
I call shenanigans. Google Maps turn-by-turn has, on several occasions, tried to take me the wrong way down a one way street. You cannot just "TRUST" an app and outsource responsibility for your own punctuality and navigation.
I've never used turn-by-turn - not available on iPhone Google Maps. Like I said, I'm sure you can easily argue that I should be more prepared instead of blaming a piece of technology. In that case, people shouldn't blame their car manufacturer when a new car stalls on the side of the road, their computer makers when the batteries don't hold charge, or web-hosts when the cascading network failures bring down their sites. Failure is not acceptable, neither is poor performance, especially when you pay for it and when it has worked well in the past.
Three years ago, I bought an iPhone primarily for visual voicemail and Google Maps. I upgraded when new phones come out and have been very satisfied. I don't see why I should have to switch to poor GPS software and stop my reliance on a device that cost me more than my laptop.
I understand WHY Apple did it. Still doesn't mean it was the right decision. Hence the very public apology.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#47For 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 t…
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…
Exactly! I don't know why people are replying to my post arguing that I shouldn't rely on my phone's GPS. Well, then why is it even there? For guidelines?
Since my home city and work location are wrong, I am very apprehensive about trusting Apple maps too. Who knows if the Panera's I'm meeting someone at is even in the right plaza? Do I need to call up every place for directions before I go there? If so, then why should I downgrade to that experience when Google Maps hasn't been wrong so far?
I think people who live in cities with good public transportation do not realize the nightmare that is driving around in smaller cities where every other street is Peach Tree and every intersection is Palm Dr. and Palm Ave. Google Maps has worked perfectly all these years. Apple Maps needs to be just as correct, if not more from the first day of launch.
I refuse to believe that there was no way for Apple to get the GPS usage data to build a better mapping app all these years. Find-my-friend/phone already goes through their servers. Users connect to 3G and visit the Appstore all the time. Even iPod gets new artwork from Apple servers. All of that's enough to know where the bulk of your users are and where they've been. Once you know where your users are, then you work with mapping companies who understand that a zip code can belong to more than one city!
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
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?
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. If I miss something important because the directions seemed correct overall but were in fact wrong, then not only do I get emotionally hurt, there could be real life damages. Not just missing a meeting or lunch date but imagine bein…
I don't think I would ever "trust" a map application from any vendor in the way you describe. What happens if your battery dies? What happens if you drop your device and it breaks? How are you going to cope? Are you going to miss your 'once-in-a-lifetime' job interview? The sort of dependency you describe ("emotionally hurt", "life damages") is foreign to me.
>The sort of dependency you describe ("emotionally hurt", "life damages") is foreign to me.
Try going somewhere important and missing it because of a Maps error, and you'll sing a different tune. You might not be "emotionally hurt" but you're sure be pissed off.
Re: Apple Has a New Cook
#50"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…
>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...