Apple After Jobs (cont.)
September 17th, 2013




There’s a lot of back-and-forth in the tech sphere about the new iPhone 5c and 5s and whether they’re boring or awesome–a sign that Apple has still got it, or that Apple is stagnating.

I suspect that a week or so from now the real story will be what the status of iOS7 is. For the last couple months there’s been chatter in developer circles about problems with iOS 7. Today Sonos pushed out an email to customers saying, well, here:

We aim to provide our customers with the best Controller and software experience possible. Unfortunately, we have encountered some issues related to the Sonos Controller for iPhone and iPad and the final, released version of iOS 7.

We are planning to release an update for your Sonos Controller for iPhone and iPad near the end of the month that addresses these issues. We ask that you take this into consideration before updating your devices to iOS 7.

I can’t remember ever having a major developer come out weeks before an iOS update and basically tell customers, Don’t upgrade to this new system. It’s kind of buggy and we haven’t figure out how to work through it yet.

For my money, this is the single biggest–and most consequential–change in Apple from the Jobs to the Cook era. Jobs almost never pushed out products that weren’t ready. The one time he did launch a buggy project (the iPhone 4, with it’s lousy antenna) that seems to have been a design flaw that was simply overlooked by engineers and testers.

Cook may have now gacked two launches–Apple Maps and iOS 7–with software that needed more time. And in both instances he seems to have gotten at least some internal warnings about the problems.

Maybe the new iOS won’t be so bad and the functionality problems will be minimal and superficial. But if I was at Apple, I’d be pretty nervous.



  1. Galley Friend J.E. September 17, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    Jobs: entrepreneur.
    Cook: bureaucrat.

    Jobs: Jordan
    Cook: Pippen

  2. REPLY
  3. Apple After Jobs (cont.) — Jonathan Last Online - smart world trade September 17, 2013 at 3:35 pm

    […] Continue reading here: Apple After Jobs (cont.) — Jonathan Last Online […]

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  5. Steve Sailer September 17, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    The bad antenna on the iPhone 4 wasn’t overlooked by the technicians, it was just that Jobs insisted upon his vision of a metal band around the rim of the phone with no unsightly breaks.

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  7. Galley Wife September 18, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    Maybe later I can get you in the subjunctive mood.

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