Apple Maps has been an early launching failure because Apple executives are not capable of understanding and implementing the company’s internet services. That was the sentiment coming from various former Apple employees who were interviewed this week by the New York Times .
In one interview, an employee says Apple Maps was originally planned for the first generation iPhone but was requested just weeks before the phone’s launch. According to that employee, Steve Jobs only wanted the app to demonstrate the capabilities of the revolutionary new phone. The employee claims that Apple was then forced to use Google mapping data, which in turn handed over countless pieces of customer data to Google, data that ultimately helped build the Google Android OS.
In another interview, it was revealed that Maps construction started in 2009 after Apple purchased several mapping startups including Placebase. At least one former employee claims that Apple executives did not take into consideration that problems could arise when attempting to gather information from various sources into a single product.
Apple Maps is not the only product to suffer from mismanagement. According to the Times article, the MobileMe product was so poorly implemented that the team behind the product was fired. Various former employees reveal that MobileMe failed because executives could not understand the difference between a download service like iTunes and a robust cloud based service that requires constant updates.
Apple has also shuttered its Ping social music discovery service, although former employees did not blame the shuttering of that service on Apple executives.
