Quality used to be hallmark of Apple, but no more.
Apple has released their latest OS in iOS 6 to provide more features as they continue to improve things for the iPhone 5. As part of that, they have made a decision to replace the popular Google Maps with Apple Maps. And the result is not a pretty one. As shown here from The Amazing iOS 6 maps you can see for yourself just how bad things are. Apple has really made a mess of things. Check out the site if you want to see more of the mapping issues which are being suffered in iOS 6. It is pretty bad. They are showing locations which are some place other than where they should be. But this really raises a number of other concerns, the most important of which is quality. Steve Jobs was all about quality.
There are the stories from back in the early days of Apple where he forces programmers to make changes to the OS in order to shave a few seconds off the boot up time. If you have read the biography of Steve Jobs, you know that he was a perfectionist. Just look at the NeXTcube which had a very unique shape and required a lot of specially made machines to manufacture. All of that was about presenting the perfect design and product. During Steve Jobs leadership at Apple, they never delivered a product which you might consider as being anything less than outstanding. That has all now changed with iOS 6 and maps.
While you can debate exactly why Apple has moved to handling their own maps, the bigger question is really did they release it too soon? In my opinion, Apple maps is definitely not ready to be released and that is because it does not measure up to Steve Job's standards for excellence. He had spent years instilling in people the idea of delivering the best possible products for people to use and meet their needs. The pictures of how Apple maps is being displayed is at the opposite side of the spectrum of quality. Whoever made the decision to roll this out now should be fired. Oh, I forgot, that was Tim Cook.
And the reports about how the Apple maps has forever changed the company's reputation are making the rounds. And it has already changed the impression of so many just by what is being displayed. While the funny answers which Siri produced last year were great, they did not tarnish the reputation of Apple. But the maps being displayed has forever altered people's perception about quality at Apple. Comparisons between Apple maps and Google maps has Google as the hands down winner when doing location searches. And that is exactly what so many do on a mobile device when using maps.
While we can expect Apple to throw a lot of resources to correct this big problem, it moves them to the likes of Microsoft in throwing resources and money to correct a problem. Apple has always eliminated the problem BEFORE it went to market. This example is a horrible example of how they have killed off Steve Job's legacy and all the good will he created with the products that he created. The company and reputation will never be the same.
Steve Jobs has left the building!
While all of this is very serious, we thought we would leave you with a little humor in the YouTube video we found which is a parody of Apple explaining that they are working to fix the mapping problems with iOS 6.
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