Could be a combination of both. But I believe the firing is more than about being a jerk or about messing up on maps. Look at the heading of their press release: [SIZE=12px]"Apple Announces Changes to Increase Collaboration Across Hardware, Software & Services"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12px]It is about[/SIZE] being able to integrate software and hardware. They can't do that effectively when Ive and Forstall cannot work together. I can work with jerks, but I cannot work with intransigent nice guys who will say one thing and do another, or will not take responsibility for screw-ups. And there have been copious software screw-ups, including but not limited to Maps. There are good reasons to question their software QA, just as is the case at Google and Microsoft too. I can remember a time when new software releases were not so laden with fundamental but also easily discovered bugs.
First, UI is not just about design. It is much deeper and broader. Second, industrial design and software design share only one thing in common: the word design. To say that he is a designer and is therefore qualified to lead user interface is - I am sorry to say - simply ignorant. I am saying Ive is not going to do great (he will if he is an adviser), but I can tell you there are software people at Apple who are quietly worried.
I believe this re-org can and will work. But I also believe that the reason for it will be the rise of Craig Federighi, and another software star. Or perhaps, they can lure back Bertrand Serlet.
So you know people at Apple who have told you their worried about Ive's new role?
Enough with the romanticizing of Forstall's departure. Can we please put away the Steve Jobs metaphors already? Apparently, all you need is an "abrasive personality" to be a comeback story like Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1996 was never a sure thing, and it almost didn't happen. And I'll be damned if repeating Steve Jobs' comeback (and eventual success as iCEO) is that easy. If Forstall can pull it off someday, I'm completely happy to eat my words, and you people can gloat about how wrong I was ten years from now, but until Forstall actually does it, let's keep the Shakespearean fantasies from getting out of hand.
Steve Jobs was a very rare kind of talent, a combination of moxie, talent, people skills, stubbornness, passion to change the world, flexibility to admit wrong, spotlight magnet, tastemaker, and raw leadership skills. Is Forstall like that? Are you people kidding? He's maybe a tenth of what Steve Jobs was. Don't believe that puff piece they wrote about Forstall in Businessweek. I think a more likely career path for someone like Forstall is to do what Andy 'Andy-Andy' Rubin did and find another well-paying tech firm that wants him. But only he can decide where he fits best, and I wish him, and Apple the best. But it's too frickin' early--and way too presumptuous--to start calling him the next Steve Jobs.
I'm excited to see Ive tackle UI, too...and how quickly the ripples develop. Interaction Design is a growing field within the Industrial Design world, anyway. It's not outside of his wheelhouse.
CEOs can't do everything. Not even God Steve did all the work. He relied on his teams. As does Tim. But if someone is making promises he can't keep, focusing on the wrong aspects while there are major bugs present, not playing nice with others etc, that's something for the CEO to fix as well.
Tim was willing to take one by issuing that apology for the Maps letdown but it likely wasn't his error. He would have expected folks like Forstall to step up and say it isn't and can't be ready. Perhaps Forstall didn't do that. Perhaps he was the one that said 'no problemo' and then didn't pull it off. And yet Forstall wouldn't take an ego hit and apology for his error and the error of his team for the sake of customer good faith.
Perhaps, perhaps...
Perhaps it was solely Tim's decision to ditch Google Maps (who else could have done it?) in favor of Apple Maps, perhaps Forstall said that this wouldn't be possible but but still took the job, perhaps that was the reason of not signing the apology ....
Scott used to code, now he is just a manager. Does anyone really think he did any coding in iOS or OSX?
He did what managers do, believe he is right and get the people below him to do what they are told.
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
People understandably are rooting for Ive because of his good reputation in hardware designs. But to me, that's not very relevant. In the end, Cook needs to step up as the CEO, he's the person who's ultimately responsible for all the mistakes made during his time as CEO. Everyone makes mistakes, Ive is not God.
Are you implying that every problem at Apple is Cook's fault and no one should ever be fired? This is Cook stepping up. Putting Ive in charge of software and hardware design shows true leadership. It's a brave move for Cook. He's putting the best designer I know in the world in charge of all design at Apple, where he should be. That's a good move. We'll see the results of this decision in iOS 7 - that I'm sure of. I'm excited!
HAHAHAHA. They realized iOS and OSX need converge instead of diverge. MS/Win8 showed them the way once again.
Coverage and collaborate are not the same thing. Apple understands that the best design is about making decisions. Decisions MS is too afraid to make. The ultimate compromise for design is thinking you can make a product with no compromises. That's living in a dream world, that, despite Microsoft's ambition, does not exist. Back here on earth the best products will continue to me made by Apple.
Do you know anyone else who led the team that created iOS and who is now free to go work for Google and give them directly what they've previously just stolen?
And that's ignoring the loss to Apple itself.
He's not going to play 3rd fiddle at Google. Maybe he'll pull a Marissa Mayer and go save a failing company. Heh...CEO of RIM.
Enough with the romanticizing of Forstall's departure. Can we please put away the Steve Jobs metaphors already? Apparently, all you need is an "abrasive personality" to be a comeback story like Steve Jobs.
More likely to end up as a more successful version of Rubinstein or Gassee.
One thing to keep in mind. Ive might not be an engineer in any way. But Jobs supposedly wasn't one either. But he did have something that made him different than most modern inventors or creator of modern tech. He had a vision. A while back I mentioned on another site that Microsoft needed someone new to come in and replace Balmer and all those clowns with a new visionary. Especially with all that has changed in the phone/tablet market.
Well now that seems to apply to Apple also, (to a certain extent, that will be more evident in the next few years). The fact that Google and Samsung have stepped up to the plate, and have seemed to many to keep step with Apple in both of those things, speaks volumes. It has have some people at Apple paying a little to much attention.
Remember that Cue showed Jobs the smaller tablets and mentioned how it was something they needed to consider. Also now, you here that one of that most appealing benefit of the A TV was the mirroring of whatever your iPhone/iPad view on the TV. But now, all of a sudden the Mirocast available on Jelly Bean can seemingly do the same thing.
Apple was supposed to be about 3-5 years ahead of all competitors. A lot of people doubt that now.
So now Apple is in need (or will be evident soon) of a new visionary of where they can differentiate themselves with whatever they come up now or some new things. Perhaps they need another guy with a 'Reality Distortion Field' frame of mind. Can that be Ive? It may have to be. One thing that makes him the prime candidate is that he knows how to make things 'look' different. And more important more appealing and something that people will be willing to pay more for.
You have to believe that Ive's team has probably got a lot of ideas they wanted to use with the Liquid Metal stuff. Perhaps Forstall kept fighting that.
There will come a day soon when the subsidies for the iPhone will start to dry up and Apple will not make the amounts of money that they have been making.
They should be alright by then anyway. Surely Google will have the HTC's & Samsung's broke by then convincing them to give their hardware away for free since they do that with Software.
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
There is a lot more to management than that. A lot more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
Jony Ive is not known for his "people skills". Though not abrasive, he is reputedly reserved and prefers to work in small groups. The iOS team is rather large. But lest we forget, he is not taking charge of the iOS team. This sounds like a matrix org in the making.
More likely to end up as a more successful version of Rubinstein or Gassee.
Possibly. Or Faddell. It's not meant as a criticism when I say Forstall isn't likely to come back and save Apple. It means to say that Steve Jobs was an extraordinary entrepreneur doing something that is by nature extremely hard to succeed at. Forstall's situation only resembles what happened to Steve in 1985 in the most superficial way. I suppose I should expect that from the forum crowd here. The people and circumstances are otherwise completely dissimilar, and that makes a the difference.
That said, if (as some posters allege) Forstall "had a lot of great ideas" for iOS, then he could do well as an innovator/entrepreneur. If not, and he's only capable of advancement through politics and "power grab," then he'll likely join another large tech firm and try to claw his way to the top again. Or he could retire and never work again.
Scott used to code, now he is just a manager. Does anyone really think he did any coding in iOS or OSX?
He did what managers do, believe he is right and get the people below him to do what they are told.
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
This is a ridiculous comment. The "coders" aren't necessarily the ones who do the work. Machines can "code," and "coding" isn't necessarily even a creative task.
What's important are the ideas not the code and Forestall came up with or helped to come up with, most of the ideas behind iOS.
You fairly obviously have a HUGE bias towards "coders" as being some kind of central figures in the creation of things. They aren't.
The best "coders" couldn't design a useful UI to save their lives.
Comments
People, come on.
Enough with the romanticizing of Forstall's departure. Can we please put away the Steve Jobs metaphors already? Apparently, all you need is an "abrasive personality" to be a comeback story like Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1996 was never a sure thing, and it almost didn't happen. And I'll be damned if repeating Steve Jobs' comeback (and eventual success as iCEO) is that easy. If Forstall can pull it off someday, I'm completely happy to eat my words, and you people can gloat about how wrong I was ten years from now, but until Forstall actually does it, let's keep the Shakespearean fantasies from getting out of hand.
Steve Jobs was a very rare kind of talent, a combination of moxie, talent, people skills, stubbornness, passion to change the world, flexibility to admit wrong, spotlight magnet, tastemaker, and raw leadership skills. Is Forstall like that? Are you people kidding? He's maybe a tenth of what Steve Jobs was. Don't believe that puff piece they wrote about Forstall in Businessweek. I think a more likely career path for someone like Forstall is to do what Andy 'Andy-Andy' Rubin did and find another well-paying tech firm that wants him. But only he can decide where he fits best, and I wish him, and Apple the best. But it's too frickin' early--and way too presumptuous--to start calling him the next Steve Jobs.
I'm excited to see Ive tackle UI, too...and how quickly the ripples develop. Interaction Design is a growing field within the Industrial Design world, anyway. It's not outside of his wheelhouse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
CEOs can't do everything. Not even God Steve did all the work. He relied on his teams. As does Tim. But if someone is making promises he can't keep, focusing on the wrong aspects while there are major bugs present, not playing nice with others etc, that's something for the CEO to fix as well.
Tim was willing to take one by issuing that apology for the Maps letdown but it likely wasn't his error. He would have expected folks like Forstall to step up and say it isn't and can't be ready. Perhaps Forstall didn't do that. Perhaps he was the one that said 'no problemo' and then didn't pull it off. And yet Forstall wouldn't take an ego hit and apology for his error and the error of his team for the sake of customer good faith.
Perhaps, perhaps...
Perhaps it was solely Tim's decision to ditch Google Maps (who else could have done it?) in favor of Apple Maps, perhaps Forstall said that this wouldn't be possible but but still took the job, perhaps that was the reason of not signing the apology ....
Anyways ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by cykz
Let's not start the discussion again about the UI. And value OSX and iOS for what it's worth.
Huh? Let's not tell people what they can discuss.
Scott used to code, now he is just a manager. Does anyone really think he did any coding in iOS or OSX?
He did what managers do, believe he is right and get the people below him to do what they are told.
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drobforever
People understandably are rooting for Ive because of his good reputation in hardware designs. But to me, that's not very relevant. In the end, Cook needs to step up as the CEO, he's the person who's ultimately responsible for all the mistakes made during his time as CEO. Everyone makes mistakes, Ive is not God.
Are you implying that every problem at Apple is Cook's fault and no one should ever be fired? This is Cook stepping up. Putting Ive in charge of software and hardware design shows true leadership. It's a brave move for Cook. He's putting the best designer I know in the world in charge of all design at Apple, where he should be. That's a good move. We'll see the results of this decision in iOS 7 - that I'm sure of. I'm excited!
Quote:
Originally Posted by macondo
HAHAHAHA. They realized iOS and OSX need converge instead of diverge. MS/Win8 showed them the way once again.
Coverage and collaborate are not the same thing. Apple understands that the best design is about making decisions. Decisions MS is too afraid to make. The ultimate compromise for design is thinking you can make a product with no compromises. That's living in a dream world, that, despite Microsoft's ambition, does not exist. Back here on earth the best products will continue to me made by Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jd_in_sb
Many people were happy when Steve Jobs left Apple in the mid-80's. That doesn't mean a person's departure is good for the company.
No, but it seems in this case it probably does. Forstall isn't Jobs, and the Apple of today isn't the Apple of '85.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
He's an idea guy. He's the guy that thought up a lot of the ideas that became iOS.
Inside his head, are all the ideas they've been kicking around for improving iOS for the next few years also. Who knows what they are?
Maybe he should start an iOS development company and release a Maps.app to sell on the App Store.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Probably because it wasn't.
Do you know anyone else who led the team that created iOS and who is now free to go work for Google and give them directly what they've previously just stolen?
And that's ignoring the loss to Apple itself.
He's not going to play 3rd fiddle at Google. Maybe he'll pull a Marissa Mayer and go save a failing company. Heh...CEO of RIM.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
People, come on.
Enough with the romanticizing of Forstall's departure. Can we please put away the Steve Jobs metaphors already? Apparently, all you need is an "abrasive personality" to be a comeback story like Steve Jobs.
More likely to end up as a more successful version of Rubinstein or Gassee.
One thing to keep in mind. Ive might not be an engineer in any way. But Jobs supposedly wasn't one either. But he did have something that made him different than most modern inventors or creator of modern tech. He had a vision. A while back I mentioned on another site that Microsoft needed someone new to come in and replace Balmer and all those clowns with a new visionary. Especially with all that has changed in the phone/tablet market.
Well now that seems to apply to Apple also, (to a certain extent, that will be more evident in the next few years). The fact that Google and Samsung have stepped up to the plate, and have seemed to many to keep step with Apple in both of those things, speaks volumes. It has have some people at Apple paying a little to much attention.
Remember that Cue showed Jobs the smaller tablets and mentioned how it was something they needed to consider. Also now, you here that one of that most appealing benefit of the A TV was the mirroring of whatever your iPhone/iPad view on the TV. But now, all of a sudden the Mirocast available on Jelly Bean can seemingly do the same thing.
Apple was supposed to be about 3-5 years ahead of all competitors. A lot of people doubt that now.
So now Apple is in need (or will be evident soon) of a new visionary of where they can differentiate themselves with whatever they come up now or some new things. Perhaps they need another guy with a 'Reality Distortion Field' frame of mind. Can that be Ive? It may have to be. One thing that makes him the prime candidate is that he knows how to make things 'look' different. And more important more appealing and something that people will be willing to pay more for.
You have to believe that Ive's team has probably got a lot of ideas they wanted to use with the Liquid Metal stuff. Perhaps Forstall kept fighting that.
There will come a day soon when the subsidies for the iPhone will start to dry up and Apple will not make the amounts of money that they have been making.
They should be alright by then anyway. Surely Google will have the HTC's & Samsung's broke by then convincing them to give their hardware away for free since they do that with Software.
The real reason Forstall is out, is his dire dress sense. His shirts make Phil Schiller look a sharp dressed man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
There is a lot more to management than that. A lot more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
Jony Ive is not known for his "people skills". Though not abrasive, he is reputedly reserved and prefers to work in small groups. The iOS team is rather large. But lest we forget, he is not taking charge of the iOS team. This sounds like a matrix org in the making.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JackTheRat
The real reason Forstall is out, is his dire dress sense. His shirts make Phil Schiller look a sharp dressed man.
Really?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
More likely to end up as a more successful version of Rubinstein or Gassee.
Possibly. Or Faddell. It's not meant as a criticism when I say Forstall isn't likely to come back and save Apple. It means to say that Steve Jobs was an extraordinary entrepreneur doing something that is by nature extremely hard to succeed at. Forstall's situation only resembles what happened to Steve in 1985 in the most superficial way. I suppose I should expect that from the forum crowd here. The people and circumstances are otherwise completely dissimilar, and that makes a the difference.
That said, if (as some posters allege) Forstall "had a lot of great ideas" for iOS, then he could do well as an innovator/entrepreneur. If not, and he's only capable of advancement through politics and "power grab," then he'll likely join another large tech firm and try to claw his way to the top again. Or he could retire and never work again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution
Scott used to code, now he is just a manager. Does anyone really think he did any coding in iOS or OSX?
He did what managers do, believe he is right and get the people below him to do what they are told.
A manager just needs to know how he wants it to look and perform and I think that Ive will be able to easily fit that role.
The coding team must be relieved that Forstall is off and they are being placed in charge of a calm and collected guy with better people skills and ideas.
This is a ridiculous comment. The "coders" aren't necessarily the ones who do the work. Machines can "code," and "coding" isn't necessarily even a creative task.
What's important are the ideas not the code and Forestall came up with or helped to come up with, most of the ideas behind iOS.
You fairly obviously have a HUGE bias towards "coders" as being some kind of central figures in the creation of things. They aren't.
The best "coders" couldn't design a useful UI to save their lives.