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The world hated his creation, and now Apple is giving him the boot: Bloomberg Newsreports Apple exec Richard Williamson, the name behind the ill-fated, Internet-ridiculedApple Maps just got fired.
The canning comes just after the ouster of Scott Forstall, another high profile Apple figure whose name was unfortunately associated with many of the functional (and cosmetic) black eyes in iOS 6. The initial Bloomberg report says Williamson was fired because “flaws hurt iPhone 5 debut,” which is certainly believable—the only news more prominent than the iPhone 5 release itself was how maligned Apple’s homemade mapping app was, and how much we all missed Google’s. There are people who skipped the iPhone 5 because of Williamson’s Maps. Semi-relatedly, Williamson also cooked up Find My Friends, another pretty-terrible iOS app.
Just two months ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook took a decidedly un-Apple move and apologized for the entire Apple Maps imbroglio. But apologies haven’t been enough to quash the complaining (or, hey, actually make the app better), and so now heads continue to roll. Big heads. But firing is only part of a fix—the app still isn’t great, and knocking off the people behind it isn’t a panacea. Bloomberg says “In removing Williamson, [Apple Senior Vice President Eddie] Cue wants to install a new leadership team for the group…A replacement for Williamson wasn’t immediately known.” The answer to that question is what’s going to fix Apple Maps’ fundamental, landscape-mutating flaws and win back iOS hearts and minds—not simply pink slips.
We’ve asked Apple for confirmation and comment, and are waiting to hear back. [Bloomberg]
While Williamson may have been responsible for Maps ona day to day basis, surely Tim Cook has final say in what is shipped. Certainly you can’t see Jobs being happy to release Maps as it was with his supposed obsession with user experiece. If they had released Maps with a Beta tag and allowed it to run alongside Google Maps for a year there would have been none of the pointing and laughing that followed it’s release. They could even have framed it as them asking for user participation “We know that we can’t check everything, that’s why we are asking for your help.” maybe even offer a points system for reporting bugs, with prizes for people who report most.
As much as I agree with what you’re saying they should have done, Apple asking their customers for help with developing their product doesn’t fit very well at all into their ‘telling customers what they want’ modus operandi
I can’t help thinking that getting rid of all the old guard with all these senior staff changes is just going to muddle them up even further
I agree with ya, Daz. The guy who made the flawed product deserves a beat down (which he kind of got in the press anyway), but the guy that made the decision to replace Google maps with it and leave users no option is the guy that deserves to go (maybe that was Forstal?).
Releasing betas? That’s not how Apple do things at all, and never will. I think this is a blip due to Jobsy dying and not being around to ‘polish’ things before release. Jobs did have a fearsome reputation and I can see how some might have slacked off since his illness and death.
At least Tim Cook is kicking ass and getting rid of those responsible swiftly. Under different regimes at Apple (pre Jobs), this never happened. Things really did stagnate.
Open user participation in software betas can be a mire with users asking for this and that and the software objectives being pulled in every direction. Just ask Tripwire Interactive.
you obviously missed the Beta tag on Siri, not surprising really, they don’t go out of their way to show it.
I wonder if the guy responsible for iTunes 11 will be next!
Oooh yes please!
The scandal!
iCry
The dream’s collapsing….again!