Actually, it's an Eddy Cue problem.
Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
21–30 of 132 posts
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#22AAPL is a hardware company. If their devices looked ugly would you buy Apple devices? How important is the way they look on the table or in your hand?
Apple has long been an attractive choice for creative professionals.
The iPod changed all that. Apple got market share. They got the people who buy PC's. And they got the developers who target the dumbest users. Now we have AppStore. Now we have iPad. The bar is being lowered. Now we have trouble, as everyone else is trying to copy Apple and their silly thirst for control. Apple is not the solution you want for boring non-creative things like fast, accurate data retrieval. Apple is not made for the internet. Nor was Microsoft. They were founded for different things. Desktop metaphor things. They've had to adapt. It can be painful to watch. It can be painful for users.
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#23Who at Fortune deserves to be fired for its recent long string of incredibly idiotic articles about Apple, which have been panned here and elsewhere, then?
I think the new Maps app is fantastic; the data accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, but I notice that those doing the most high-profile complaining point to errors in rural England, rural Ontario, etc. Here in the Bay Area, the data is working fine for me as well.
It is not shocking to me that a map database that is a few months old is less mature than one like Google's, which is the product of a decade's effort, and also the product of 5 years' worth of improvements riding the back of iOS users' crowd-sourced data. Now Apple has that data coming into its database, instead of flying out the door to Google's.
Maps is likely to improve, and fast.
In any case, blaming Forstall is idiotic and talking about firing him is Fortune-level idiotic. He made great things at NeXT, Mac OS X is great, Siri is great, and Maps is a work in progress that shows great promise.
Have you tried reloading map data and zooming in and out on maps in Google Maps vs. Apple Maps in an area with EDGE or otherwise bad internet coverage? Apple's app wins hands-down versus reloading non-vector map tiles.
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#24Since when has Siri been "an embarrassment for Apple?"
It's had a similar number of issues, as compared to Maps. The difference is, it didn't replace or introduce a must-have feature in iOS. As a result, it's failures were something users are able to overlook because Siri is still, essentially, a toy feature. It's not key to the phone's operation; heck it's non-obvious that it's even a feature because no where on the interface indicates that it exists (it's a hidden long…
> Maps, however, is crucial to most people that use an iPhone
Citation please. Nobody I know uses google maps, even when we travel (which is a lot).
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#25> Inside Apple, tension has brewed for years over the [skeuomorphism] issue. Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstall is said to push for skeuomorphic design, while industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple higher-ups are said to oppose the direction. "You could tell who did the product based on how much glitz was in the UI," says one source intimately familiar with Apple’s design process. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/…
Very interesting. Of course, Steve Jobs was also in favor of skeuomorphic design, so it's not like Forstall is the sole reason I "find my friends" in stitched leather.
Stranger still, it is said that the stitched leather theme was modeled after the upholstery in Jobs' Gulfstream jet! [0] Both iCal on OS X and Find My Friends on iOS have the same motif.
“But before Forstall, it was Steve Jobs who encouraged the skeuomorphic approach, some say. “iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet,” says the former senior UI designer. “There was lots of internal email among UI designers at Apple saying this was just embarrassing, just terrible.”
[0] http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-softwa...
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#26Who at Fortune deserves to be fired for its recent long string of incredibly idiotic articles about Apple, which have been panned here and elsewhere, then? I think the new Maps app is fantastic; the data accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, but I notice that those doing the most high-profile complaining point to errors in rural England, rural Ontario, etc. Here in the Bay Area, the data is working fine for me as well…
Newsflash: A lot of people live in rural England, rural Ontario and Rural Holland. Besides, it can't find places like central station in Amsterdam (hardly rural). I don't care whether it's the app or the data, I don't care that it's working great in the bay area. What I do care about is that I had a perfectly working mapping solution, and now I have a second class thing that's just not working. I don't know about you, but IMHO having wrong directions is even worse than having no directions.
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#27Forstall has been called "Apple's chief asshole"[0] - he channels Steve Jobs's approach of being a douchebag, but doesn't seem to have acquired the same level of perfectionism as Jobs. 0: http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+chief+Ahole+Forstall+Keeps+S...
He also gives me that impression when I see him on Keynotes, one of a power grabbing, back-stabbing kind of guy. Which could or could not be true, I'm talking purely from a "face-reading" standpoint. The exact opposite of that would be Bob Mansfield.
I've seen each VP (except Mansfield) talk in person and I have gotten a very different impression of Forstall. He was one of the most impressive VPs in my eyes (he talked a lot about his passion for bettering accessibility and making life-altering impacts with iOS).
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's had a similar number of issues, as compared to Maps. The difference is, it didn't replace or introduce a must-have feature in iOS. As a result, it's failures were something users are able to overlook because Siri is still, essentially, a toy feature. It's not key to the phone's operation; heck it's non-obvious that it's even a feature because no where on the interface indicates that it exists (it's a hidden long…
> Maps, however, is crucial to most people that use an iPhone Citation please. Nobody I know uses google maps, even when we travel (which is a lot).
I used it three times yesterday.
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#29Since when has Siri been "an embarrassment for Apple?"
The biggest issue with Siri was the same as with the current Maps blunder, where it works well for US users, but causes issues for everyone else.
There are some videos of non-native English speakers trying to use Siri on their new 4s (before additional languages were added), which are quite funny actually.
The same goes for the new Maps, which seems to have most of its issues related to countries outside the US.
But especially with iOS6, it's actually the first time for me personally where I feel like I'm downgrading my device instead of upgrading it: youtube app - gone, maps - replaced with inferior alternative, ...
Re: Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?
#30Who at Fortune deserves to be fired for its recent long string of incredibly idiotic articles about Apple, which have been panned here and elsewhere, then? I think the new Maps app is fantastic; the data accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, but I notice that those doing the most high-profile complaining point to errors in rural England, rural Ontario, etc. Here in the Bay Area, the data is working fine for me as well…
Newsflash: A lot of people live in rural England, rural Ontario and Rural Holland. Besides, it can't find places like central station in Amsterdam (hardly rural). I don't care whether it's the app or the data, I don't care that it's working great in the bay area. What I do care about is that I had a perfectly working mapping solution, and now I have a second class thing that's just not working. I don't know about you…
True, and I granted that point already. However, a lot of people live in China, too, and it's being widely reported that Apple Maps is much better than Google Maps' data, in China. I'll just give one link, but a little googling around proves the point quite well:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/gadget/314283/apple-maps-bet...
You didn't have a perfectly working solution before, btw; Google Maps still has a lot of errors.
And what you have now is both Google Maps (via Safari), and also a new Maps app that is internally superior and relies on a less-mature dataset which will mature quickly and give Google some much-needed motivation to improve its data as well. I'm not sure why this is such a big disaster.
Edit: By the way, Apple Maps finds Amsterdam Centraal (not "Central") Station just fine, if you spell it correctly. I just checked; it finds the exact same place as Google Maps.