Apple Axes Head of Mapping Team

New submitter drkim writes "'Apple has reportedly fired the head of its mapping team following software glitches which annoyed customers and rained mockery on the company.' Mr. Williamson promptly left Apple headquarters in Antarctica, and walked to his home in Middelfart, Denmark." Nerval's Lobster adds: "Cue is also 'seeking advice from outside map-technology experts' as well as 'prodding maps provider TomTom to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple.'"

Re:Was it justified

[Edgewize]

No. Failing to deliver a quality product isn't the problem. The problem is if you promise to deliver a quality product, and then you fail.

It seems to me like Apple wouldn't have made the switch right away on iOS 6 if they weren't confident that the software was ready. Someone had to stand up and say, "This is ready" or "This is not ready". If Mr. Williamson was in charge of it, and he told his bosses with confidence that it was ready, he should be fired. That's pretty straightforward.

Re:Lessons

[MachDelta]

Apple shot themselves in the foot on this.

Option A) was to negotiate with Google (which they did) and accept paying more money and letting Google put their logo somewhere (which they didn't).

Option B) was to to let it ride with no navigation (their contract with Google for just map data still had a year or two left before renewal) and work on their own map/nav system in the meantime, launching it when it was ready or the contract was up.

Option C) was to abandon common sense, drop Google because they are evil, and quickly roll their own "superior" map/nav system on a greatly accelerated timespan. And pray that it's not a horrible, brand-damaging mess. Oops!

Re:Was it justified

[Gr33nJ3ll0]

FWIW, Scape goat is a pretty old term. I believe it originated with the Greeks who had a ritual where everybody in a town would symbolically add all their troubles onto the back of a literal goat. This goat was then either driven out of town, or sacrificed to the gods, taking the people's trouble with it.

Re:Was it justified

[Jmc23]

Actually, a lot of Leviticus makes sense from the viewpoint of a manual on HOW to live a healthy life given the knowledge and conditions of the time. Unfortunately, there's never an attempt at explaining WHY. haha, most people nowadays know so little about keeping healthy that they can't see the wisdom in the words.

You forgot option D

[dutchwhizzman]

Option D: They could have straight forward have bought Tom Tom and use their application. TomTom's own devices that use the same map information had no trouble navigating where Apple was leading you nowhere. At the current share price it would be affordable for Apple to buy it and it would buy them an entrance into the dashboard of several large brands, that are already using built-in TomTom navigation devices.

Re:Was it justified

[History's Coming To]

Alternative source: a "scapegoat" was a hobbled goat left with a flock of sheep. As the (less valuable) goat couldn't run it would be taken down by an attacking wolf, leaving the more valuable livestock to escape.

Re:Was it justified

[shutdown -p now]

They had no control over the maps app from google

The old iOS Maps app was written by Apple, actually. Google was only supplying the data.

There was no way to get key features (turn-by-turn directions) without meeting google's demands (for more user data).

The "more user data" part is bullshit. What Google asked is for them to add Latitude support to Maps. Latitude is an opt-in service that lets users (and therefore also Google) track each others' location. Unless users specifically enable it, no data is provided. And, personally, I find it a useful enough service that its absence in iOS Maps is actually a point against it.

Re:You forgot option D

[Bigby]

Option E: Buy Garmin. Don't get criticized for shipping jobs overseas by running a mapping company from Europe like Tom Tom. Plus Garmin is better than everyone else, with their full suite of GPS-related products.