Apple has been virtually printing money with the iOS products because they consistently, if incrementally, offered better and better products. Products that, for most users, offered a genuinely good to great experience and products that challenged the market to be better – far better – than they had before. This, as far as I can tell, is the first really big snafu in the user experience and that may be worrisome.
The thing is – and what the apple fans are all afraid of (but few may admit) is that this isn't just a stumble, but rather, the first major indicator of what a post-Steve Jobs Apple product experience is like.
Every good ride comes to an end – it's just a question of when and how.
> The thing is – and what the apple fans are all afraid of (but few may admit) is that this isn't just a stumble, but rather, the first major indicator of what a post-Steve Jobs Apple product experience is like.
I'm not afraid of it because it's bullshit. Where do we lay the blame for the YouTube app then? Or the huge engineering problems with the original MacBook Air? When Steve Jobs tried to kill iTunes for Windows and the App Store, how was he looking out for the user experience? I have little doubt the much-derided contacts app for Mac and iPad was a direct order from SJ. His influence was a mixed bag.
The only people who deify Steve Jobs' every move in Apple like that are people that aren't actually fans or aren't actually paying attention. Steve Jobs had a great vision, but he made bad decisions and good ones. As long as Apple is still doing exponentially better this week than last week, and they are, then the naive ones in this equation are the ones placing any amount of weight on "post-Jobs Apple" yet. We aren't even close to that.
The first macbook air, despite engineering issues, was widely viewed as an amazing step forward for portable computing and it, echoing the iPhone, pushed the industry forward considerably.
Say what you will, it was still a major success and yet another feather in Job's cap, as viewed by the general public.
Don't think for a second that I'm saying Jobs was perfect in any way – but there is a general vision of Apple under his leadership as being the golden goose – Apple hasn't had a huge public fumble in the last decade that has been able to make its core customers question its ability to deliver ever increasingly good user experiences.
There have indeed been mistakes, but none of them have seemed to really injure the giant that is Apple. That generalized success has largely been credited to Jobs – with strong help from Cook and Ive. With Jobs' passing, it has been a real question as to whether Apple can keep that string of big successes and minor, if any, failures going.
What I'm suggesting is that if not fixed quickly, the maps experience downgrade will be viewed as a sign that post-Jobs Apple isn't the same and that may be dangerous for Apple.
I can't agree, I think mythmaking is unnecessary. Steve Jobs put his fair share of cold garbage onto the market.
Apple's bigger than anyone ever dreamed they'd be and they're the global standard bearer in smartphones. Any platform regression anywhere now affects millions of customers. The Mac is a piffle compared to iOS.
Edit: I will definitely agree that the fallout from this problem will be greater than any they've ever faced.
The thing is – and what the apple fans are all afraid of (but few may admit) is that this isn't just a stumble, but rather, the first major indicator of what a post-Steve Jobs Apple product experience is like.
Every good ride comes to an end – it's just a question of when and how.