thefly

peteo said:

Whats the over under with Forstall coming back if Cook retires early (Gets canned)?

Zero. Cook's not getting canned or retiring early. Apple is still performing very well, 2019 Q1 is still going to be their second highest revenue quarter even after the adjustment. Besides, every other company that has significant business in China is reporting big negative impacts. I'd bet more on Forstall doing a new startup at some point, but he does seem content with his current life.

Scott was set up to fail. "Yeah, we want you to do something to beat Google at Maps, who has much more budget and resources and a 10 year head start, and if you can't do it, you should apologize". Steve would not have apologized, he would have told Tim Cook to f--- off. I hope Scott did as well.

I don't think it was so much that, but that was probably the icing. Forstall is very much like Jobs in his leadership style, perhaps because of working under Jobs so much. There's nothing wrong with that, but Apple leadership in the last few years of Jobs was filled with people who didn't necessarily get along and were only held together because of Steve.

I'd be willing to bet that Forstall's personality clashed too much with Cook and a couple of other leaders (I'd guess Schiller and Eddie 'Hollywood' Cue).

The creativity and design work during the early iPhone days was more impressive then the current flat-design world of today. If you think about Notes, for example, with the binding at the top and the little slivers of torn paper, that's design. Did it make the product better? Maybe, because there are studies today that Flat design is harder to comprehend and use compared to skeuomorphic design.

I'm impartial, but you can't argue the beauty of the design work from those days, even if today it looks a little garish.