This makes me wonder - who at Apple decided it was necessary to make their own maps app?
It's easy to blame Forstall for a crappy product. But if someone else was responsible for mandating the change, assigning him the project, and pushing an impossible deadline, maybe it's more their fault.
It was a decision that was forced by a number of factors. Google wouldn't agree to providing directions for turn-by-turn navigation, so Apple had to seek other solutions.
"Jobs tells the VP that if the garbage in his office is not being emptied regularly for some reason, he would ask the janitor what the problem is. The janitor could reasonably respond by saying, "Well, the lock on the door was changed, and I couldn't get a key."
It's an irritation for Jobs, but it's an understandable excuse for why the janitor couldn't do his job. As a janitor, he's allowed to have excuses.
"When you're the janitor, reasons matter," Jobs tells newly minted VPs, according to Lashinsky.
"Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering," says Jobs, adding, that Rubicon is "crossed when you become a VP."
Scuttlebutt is that it was an executive-wide decision based on the coming renegotiation of their 5 year agreement with Google regarding Maps. Google has been letting iOS maps lag behind Android maps (e.g., Android has turn-by-turn navigation, iOS maps didn't), so Apple was understandably not excited about renewing that agreement, and leaving themselves very vulnerable to one of their biggest competitors. But they didn't have something comparable, so they pushed a weak maps app early to catch Google off-guard--and they did. Google didn't have an app ready in the app store to replace the one they lost in the OS.
That's my synthesis of the analysis of a bunch of Apple watchers, so take it with a bowl of salt. But it makes sense to me.
It's easy to blame Forstall for a crappy product. But if someone else was responsible for mandating the change, assigning him the project, and pushing an impossible deadline, maybe it's more their fault.