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November 27, 2012: Apple fires the supervisor chargeable for the disastrous Apple Maps app in iOS 6 after the glitchy software program delivers embarrassingly unhealthy knowledge to customers world wide.
Richard Williamson, who oversaw Apple’s mapping crew, will get the ax from Eddy Cue, who takes over the crew.
Apple Maps launch: A historic misstep
Apple Maps will go down as one of many greatest missteps in Apple historical past. The debacle got here within the wake of Steve Jobs’ loss of life, when individuals had been in search of any excuse to accuse the corporate of struggling a decline in high quality.
Sadly, the flawed Apple Maps gave these people loads of ammunition. Along with warping landscapes and distorting landmarks, the Maps app even urged that folks steer the unsuitable method throughout a taxiway at Alaska’s Fairbanks Worldwide Airport.
Williamson wasn’t the one high-profile exec to go down because of the Apple Maps screwup. Apple additionally ousted Scott Forstall, senior vice chairman of iOS software program, after he refused to make a public apology. (Cupertino introduced Williamson’s firing weeks after Forstall’s.)
To repair the Apple Maps downside, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner advisable that clients briefly use different mapping companies. In the meantime, Cue requested that digital maps supplier TomTom NV assist repair the landmark and navigation knowledge for Apple.
“Look, the very first thing is that you simply’re embarrassed,” Cue advised Quick Firm just a few years later, concerning his response to Maps. “Let’s simply take care of that one truth of emotion. These items imply quite a bit to us, we work actually laborious, and so that you’re embarrassed. We had fully underestimated the product, the complexity of it.”
Apple Maps since then …
After Apple Maps’ disastrous launch, Cupertino made massive steps to enhance the service. The corporate began updating Apple Maps daily, launched options like Flyover, and printed quite a few fascinating patents. (One instance: An effort to make navigation software program extra humanlike by referencing landmarks and road indicators as an alternative of simply street names.)
Apple additionally snapped up mapping-related corporations like Coherent Navigation, which helped develop a type of ultra-detailed GPS correct inside centimeters versus the standard meters. Apple even utilized for permission to use drones to enhance its mapping.
The corporate reportedly spent “billions” updating its Maps app. And Cupertino continues to roll out enhanced variations of Apple Maps. iOS 15 launched 3D views of main cities earlier this yr, with extra on the best way.
To this present day, some individuals nonetheless invoke the early Apple Maps nightmare for example of tech gone unsuitable. Nonetheless, it’s laborious to fault Apple for correcting the issue because it did. Even when we by no means wish to see anybody lose a job.
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