A regular Joe
September 22nd, 2012 at 8:12 pm by Dr. Drang
If you’re having trouble following the logic of Joe Nocera’s column about the imminent decline of Apple, I can summarize it for you in a few bullet points:
- Steve Jobs wouldn’t have allowed a disaster like the iOS 6 Maps app to happen because he was a perfectionist. The hockey puck mouse, the cracking plastic in the G4 cube, MobileMe, the signal loss on the iPhone 4’s antenna, the discoloration of white MacBooks, MobileMe, the very premature announcement of the white iPhone, Ping, Mobile Me—none of these would have occurred on Steve’s watch.
- OK, the Mobile Me disaster occurred while Steve was running the company, but he fired the executive team in charge of it—after which it became the greatest online service in history, a success story that continues to this day.
- Apple’s inability to make a good maps app—a type of software and service it’s never made before—is an indication that Apple is simply resting on its laurels and no longer striking out in new directions. (And if it wants to strike out in new directions, it’d better not get those directions from Maps, amirite? Hehehe!)
- Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung, in which the jury found that Samsung willfully infringed on Apple’s patents, shows that Apple is no longer innovating. It could end up like RIM, which was crushed by innovators like Apple and… er… Samsung.
See, it’s really very simple.
September 22nd, 2012 at 11:07 pm
That was absolutely one of the most incoherent pieces of writing I’ve seen in some time.
I’m not about to claim Apple made my life better with the lame maps app[1], or defend some of the more questionable choices they’ve made lately. But good lord, if you’re going to gripe, make sense.
[1] Navigon is still top notch, at least in urban California (mostly Bay area), NE Ohio, Boston area and NYC/NJ; can’t speak for other locales. It was spectacularly wrong about a rural area in Nevada recently which didn’t bother me because I was familiar-ish with where I was going, and was similarly wrong in a rural area in New Hmpshire, which really sucked because my car was overheating and I had no idea where I was.
September 23rd, 2012 at 5:27 am
Joe Nocera omits that “if Steve Jobs were still around,” he would still be calling Joe Nocera “a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.” http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/27/a-portrait-of-steve-jobs-at-31/