I didnt say that he doesnt do his best, I said that he might not have the same pride in doing so. The pride I associate with Serlets and Forstalls involvement in OS X and iOS respectively since their inception (their babies).
Obviously conjecture on my part. Although Federighi was part of NeXT and Apple (19961999), he only returned to Apple in 2009. He pretty much inherited the work of his predecessors Serlet (2011) and Forstall (2012), which were each responsible for the major decisions behind either software platforms (aside from Jobs himself). My question is whether Federighi will have the same loyalty towards the products and their founding design principles. Federighi has made some key departures in that respect, the result of which we can now see (most of the quality decline discussed here is attributed to the releases made during is reign).
I wonder, again purely conjecture, whether it was wise to hand over the reigns to Federighi in the first place. With Jobs gone and no Apple veteran at the helm of OS X and iOS development, Federighi has inherited perhaps greater responsibilities than his predecessors, despite being a relatively recent addition to the team. Jobs himself said once that Apples near-demise (before his return) was in part an existential crisis: that Apple had forgotten who it was and why customers loved their products. Is it the new direction that Federighi has given to these products, or did customers value a quality inherent to Apple software: stable, common-sensical, well thought-out.
