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Google's (fictitious) response to Apple CEO Tim Cook's apology letter
Apple Senior VP of iPhone Software Scott Forstall demonstrates the new map application featured on iOS 6 during an event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif.
Today, Apple CEO Tim Cook, posted a letter of apology to customers, in response to growing criticism over the Maps app in Apple’s new operating system. Above, we imagine how Google co-founder Sergey Brin might have responded.
From the letter:
At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.
In addition to letting customers know they would be improving the app to fix some high-profile bugs, Apple also made an about-face on its decision to ditch Google Maps on the iPhones, and instead encouraged users to download that app or other alternatives.
You can imagine how Google co-founder Sergey Brin might be feeling right about now. In fact, we got a hold of a marked up copy of Cook's apology letter with Brin's hand-written notes revealing his glee at the Apple misstep. (well, not really, but we imagine this is what his marked-up version might have looked like.)
I'll stipulate up front that I'm an Apple fanboy. Not a particularly rabid one, though, as my now two-generation-old iPhone 4 will most likely stay in service for another year beyond the time my AT&T contract ends in three months or so.
That being said, I freely admit the new Apple map app is clearly quite the fiasco, and I was just sitting back and waiting for the usual Marketplace schadenfreude at the Apple misstep. In the comment before mine, Paul Johnson hit on the head the same nail that tends to get missed by general business shows like Marketplace but which has been driven in by the professional tech press: It seems to be well beyond rumor that talks between Apple and Google over turn by turn directions on the iPhone went off the rails. In this day and age, a map app without turn by turn is no map app at all, so Apple was left with no choice but to go it alone.
It's clear Apple could have done this better. Probably a LOT better, or at the very least more incrementally (apparently, there was still a year left on Apple's mapping contract with Google). Usually, it's in Apple's DNA to "hit it out of the park on the first try." The map app is obviously a dribbler down the first base line.
Will this end up being a tragic misstep or a bold move? Let's ask that again in a year or so. In the short time since the new map app's introduction, Apple got an incredible amount of user feedback (much of it profanity-laced, one would assume) which should lead to considerable improvement in a short amount of time. One reviewer (Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times) has already reported that two major mapping errors he planned to highlight in his review were fixed before he could publish them.
