Siri, Can You Reroute My Company?
Hold on to
your Iphones folks, but the beloved Apple, the most profitable company in the world, is seeing a major shakeup and there might be reason to worry. Apple has had a major shake up today firing Scott Fostall who is their head of mobile software. He has reportedly been
fired because he refused to sign an apology letter sent out to customers about
their failures on the mobile front, specifically Siri and Apple Maps.
Forstall had been seen as an
abrasive part of the company with some co-workers even refusing to take meetings with him. His departure is so well received that his co-workers are splitting
up his workload with Eddy Cue taking on Siri and Maps, Craig Federighi taking
on iOS, and legendary designer Jony Ive will take on the task of refreshing the
mobile design, which has remained largely stagnant in the last few years.
The shake
up is huge for a few reasons beyond just the likely change of your Iphone
looking different. First of all this is Tim Cooks first major move as CEO after
Steve Jobs passed a little over a year ago. Secondly this could be a major
change that signals a small downfall of Apple in terms of market share.
In the past
year many have looked at Apple and agreed that they have lacked an ultimate
decider. This was what Jobs had done best. He was a meticulous leader who made
sure every detail was looked at in a product before a launch. Cook has said he spends less time on products than Jobs did, which leaves more freedom and
responsibility to the managers.
After the maps incident however he
saw the effects that can happen when not all managers pull their weight. There have been many photographs on the
Internet similar to the one below which show the issues with Apple maps and
most declare that Jobs would never have let this happen.
The Tim Cook era of Apple has
officially begun and while it has started with amazing profit revenues it is
hard to forget Apple’s dark ages without Jobs. I personally remember the first
iMac computer my family owned in 1998 which was a glorified box that was
incompatible with even the most necessary of applications such as Microsoft
Word. There was almost nothing you could
download to enhance your computer, nothing to entertain yourself, and it cost
more than almost every other computer on the market. It took years for Apple to
climb back to the top and it was because of Jobs attention to detail, and his
constant vision for the best and most simple user experience.
Apple can only justify charging so
much more for their products as long as they have quality products with the
best software. Software developers choose which platform will rule. If there continues to be applications such as
Apple Maps and Siri that are not ready for prime time then developers and
eventually customers will move elsewhere.
Apple is now in the Tim Cook era,
and the change in their mobile software will not just change how your Ipad or
Iphone looks, but may also change how you view the company.
No comments:
Post a Comment