Scott Forstall Deserved to be Ousted from Apple Says Former Apple Exec

[drober30]

I love my Nest!

[wikus]

Originally Posted by rdlink

Geez. Some people will never understand, even with 10+ years of perspective one of the main reasons why the iPod was successful while other MP3 players languished.

That has nothing to do with the fact that Apple doesn't allow you to take control of your media and other files on ipods, iphones and ipads.

[PBG4 Dude]

Originally Posted by kas23

Seriously, why are they waiting until the new year to boot his ass out? I would have given him an hour to gather his keepsakes and then provided him with an escort out of the building.

When you're at that level, there are employment contracts that have to be met.

tl;dr -- Contractual Obligations.

[Rogifan]

Originally Posted by Roller

Clearly, Fadell could have said much more about Forstall and their working relationship (or lack thereof) in this interview. But a polite "I'm not going to comment on that" would have gotten the message across in a much classier way.

I wonder if Fadell is interested in returning to Apple at some point, now that Forstall is gone. Or maybe he just wants to supply Nest thermostats for the upcoming spaceship Apple building.

Didn't he leave Apple because iPhone overtook iPod as the favored product and he didn't really have much to do with the iPhone (and I'm guessing probably iPod touch too)?

[Radio]

Originally Posted by prowlmedia

I wouldn't say bland. It's Usable for millions - Unlike The many variations of Geekdroid. Nothing wrong with the Android platform but I showed 5 different variations of it to my parents. And they didn't have a clue ( also to a 4 year old ).

The only thing I have ever shown my parents on the iPad is the Home button. Even then - it was just "That button at the bottom takes you home" The rest they figured out. Even printing and setting up a printer!!!!! Which has been the bain of my parental tech support life for 15 years.

Android is not as intuative and only made worse by skins and fragmentation and horrible design choices by HTC and Samsung - though it looks like Google are reigning that in - They should have controlled the UI from the start.

Look at OSX - they have made simple and nice incremental changes over the past 12 years of OSX and it works and users can pick it up easily...

Reminds me of this! Great series of videos How Real People Will Use Windows 8

Features on iOS are lacking however and certainly Could do with Gizmo's. Passport is ok - shouldn't have been pushed so much as a 'Feature' and just needs more companies on board. I suspect when Visa get their whole payment system rolling with RFID etc then Apple will use that as payment engine.

Not arguing that apple isn't a cleaner interface but iOS hasn't changed for the better.

Android has.

Apple will catch up and add an i

Btw google voice works better than Siri .

That's an embarrassment

[JaySoul]

Forstall has acted like the man who wants to be king, but doesn't want to do the work that gets him there.

[Krazy Bill]

Don't really care if he was an arsehole and pissed colleagues off. Jobs did this as well. Forstall gave us Leopard and from there, Snow Leopard. Now we have that crap they call 10.8.

Long live the arseholes of Apple.

[Clubber]

Originally Posted by osaga

I wish someone would just tell us what the jackass (Forstall) did to deserve what he got. Can't macrumors email some former underlings and get a scoop?

There are two rules to tech:

1. Be good at your job.
2. Don't be an *******.

[KdParker]

Originally Posted by colmaclean

NEWSFLASH - bloke who was elbowed out the door thinks it's a good thing that the main elbower has now been elbowed too.

Too true. Sounds like someone hasn't moved on.

[MisterBigMack]

We only really properly saw how Forstall acted and how he was on the keynotes - nobody on here especially, followed him round the Apple campus everyday so we dont know what went behind closed doors


But anyways apart from Maps (which I saw the guy who overlooked that app got fired other day didnt he anyways?) I like iOS6 - and thats all the matters to me - its a nice relation to OSX and looking forward to future things

[KdParker]

Originally Posted by bumblebritches5

I've NEVER liked Forstall, he always seemed like an arrogant *******, adn i'm glad he's not apart of Apple anymore.

Arrogant is not a reason to dislike someone. Just sayin

[fertilized-egg]

Originally Posted by MisterBigMack

We only really properly saw how Forstall acted and how he was on the keynotes - nobody on here especially

That's not completely true. We have at least one of Forstall's former colleagues posting here at Macrumors and he had good things to say about Forstall although that dates back to the late 90s.

Not that I think Forstall was an easy guy to work with but I think quoting Tony Fadell on the matter doesn't really isn't fair on Forstall much given the history between the two. Then again the history is written by winners and we probably won't get the story from Forstall's side for a long time.

[KdParker]

Originally Posted by roadbloc

Maybe we'll see a less Skeuomorphoric and half baked iOS now he has gone. Maybe we'll see some actual improvement to OS X as well instead of just recycled iOS features.

I have to say I am not a fan of Skeuomorphoric when it is over used.

less is more in this case.

[Rogifan]

Originally Posted by Krazy Bill

Don't really care if he was an arsehole and pissed colleagues off. Jobs did this as well. Forstall gave us Leopard and from there, Snow Leopard. Now we have that crap they call 10.8.

Long live the arseholes of Apple.

I thought that was Serlet?

[prowlmedia]

Originally Posted by Radio

Not arguing that apple isn't a cleaner interface but iOS hasn't changed for the better.

Android has.

Apple will catch up and add an i

Btw google voice works better than Siri .

That's an embarrassment

Seriously.... "Apple will catch up and add an i" - That's the embarrassment - Rolls eyes.

And Google voice doesn't work for me at all on the Nexus. But then again I have a neutral British english accent... Siri works most of the time - but definitely depends on the environment.

But while you say google has changed for the better... I say Jelly Bean 4.1 is the first usable version of Android at all. The scrolling before was shocking and even now is nowhere as good iOS - and the tablet support with apps is still rubbish - expanded mobiles apps for the most part... but this is mainly as Dev's couldn't make any money on the play store because it was so easy to pirate. Finally they have app signing now.

The best feature on droid is Google Now... but at the moment its not on most Droid phones. and they introduced it on the wifi only nexus !?!

But do agree that Apple don't seem to listen to what people really want.

Widgets!!! Stuff on the Lock screen! Since ios2 people forums are full of requests.

[z3r0]

So now that Scott is out of the picture for the time being. I wonder if Tony will be brought back into the fold. Bob decided to un-retire after Scott left.

[prowlmedia]

Originally Posted by KdParker

Arrogant is not a reason to dislike someone. Just sayin

Um.. no. Arrogance is exactly the reason to dislike someone.. Why would you like someone like that.

for example I've met Simon Cowell and guess what he is a complete arse.

Kayne West too. Tosser.

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by WatchTheThrone

Reminds me of when Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple then came back....hhhhmmmm maybe he will be apples savior in the future

Not at all the same. But nice try.

[WatchTheThrone]

Originally Posted by Radio

You insult Steve jobs legacy.

Jobs is a rarity.

Forstall you are no Steve Jobs.

I never compared Steve Jobs with Forstall I just compared the same situation of them being forced out of apple. Steve Jobs was 1 in a million. May he rest in peace.

[Tailpike1153]

Originally Posted by Clubber

There are two rules to tech:

1. Be good at your job.
2. Don't be an *******.

Not sure about #2.

Cause there have been a bunch of "nice" people in the tech world.

1. Bill Gates
2. Steve Jobs
3. Larry Ellison
4. Senior Leadership at ATT, Verizon, BellSouth, Comcast... (ie the American Telcom and Cable industries)
5. Carly Fiorino
6. Thomas Edison
7. Google leadership (if you aren't drinking the Don't Be Evil kool-aid)
8. HP management. For some reason it makes perfect sense to have a multimillion dollar American account call the customer service line to the call center in Guatemala, where the staff can barely speak Spanish (fugedabout American), to placed on hold for 3 hours while "Ma-hew" goes to find the one person in the village who can say "I send somebody."
9. Fill in the Blank

Somehow these people keep their jobs or move on to other good jobs. All by being garbage. Dang, I need to move to their level.

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by ironsienna

It's so easy to turn Forstall into a scapegoat.

Because he set himself up for it. iOS 6 was a disaster full of serious bugs that bricked vital parts of many phones and cost a noticeable amount of users tons on overages they shouldn't have had not to mention out of warranty hardware replacements (and the company thousands on in warranty replacements). As SVP, Forstall's main job is preventing such poor QC from happening particularly before bothering with cutesy crap that has no utility like shifting shadows on slider knobs.

No matter what Forstall did in the past this was a huge fail and when you combine it with the personality conflicts that is a no go

[rdlink]

Originally Posted by wikus

That has nothing to do with the fact that Apple doesn't allow you to take control of your media and other files on ipods, iphones and ipads.

It has everything to do with what you view as Apple keeping something away from you. It has to do with offering a seamless, well meshed system for synching and managing your music (now media) files without having to "geek out." It also has to do with the fact that Apple got the buy-in from the music industry only because they (Jobs specifically) were able to show the dolts at the RIAA that the only way to save themselves from piracy was to allow users reasonable ways to use music digitally. Then Apple, after gaining dominance in the industry forced the music labels to loosen up DRM.

None of these things would have happened had the iTunes/iPod experience not been such an easy to use system that offered reasonable protections against piracy. Do you know how many people I dealt with in the early days who spent their days trying to figure out how to get their music uploaded to others' computers? That's piracy, and allowing that would have made the music industry walk away from the table.

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by HiRez

The question is, can the guys who took over for Forstall do better?

Considering that its Sir Jony at the helm, yeah he likely can. Remember that Steve respected Sir Js skills enough to put him in a highly protected status with near total control over design decisions. Something Steve didn't give his BFF Scott. That to me is telling.

[iamPro]

Originally Posted by Radio

Not arguing that apple isn't a cleaner interface but iOS hasn't changed for the better.

Android has.

Apple will catch up and add an i

Btw google voice works better than Siri .

That's an embarrassment

I'm not saying Android is any bad or worse than Apple as it is now...
But, you got to remember Android could only have gotten better considering how bad it was at the beginning.

On the other hand iOS pretty much nailed it from the start.
So, obviously Android would look like it is making bigger improvements than iOS.

[Robert.Walter]

Originally Posted by Negritude

"...got what he deserved..."

If only every day could be "tell the truth" day.

Feeling a bit of the "itis"?