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Steve Jobs' Reaction to MobileMe Launch, Life at Apple After Jobs and Other Anecdotes

koobcamuk said:
Exactly. I dumped .Mac for Dropbox and Gmail. Both work better that MobileMe ever did, and both are free.
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I had MobileMe for around 2 months but then I questioned why I was shelling out AUS$100 or so dollars for a service that I really didn't and couldn't take full advantage of (I have metred internet so the remote storage wasn't used much nor the 'back to Mac' which left the email service which wasn't anything to write home about). So I closed it off, got a refund and went to Microsoft's Live services; they integrate well with my WP7 device, I can upload documents etc. to my skydrive using 'Microsoft Document Connection' etc.

To be totally honest what Apple need to do is provide 'MobileMe' free of charge and charge extra for some premium service because quite honestly I don't see the benefit of using MobileMe over the free services that exist out there in the various forms.
 
AJ Predictions said:
Stevie's reaction to the poor dude's excuse is so priceless! :)
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When u think about it, he prepared the question in a way that whichever response he would get he could say the same thing he did. Because of the "supposed to do" in the the question is more of a statement.


this is not hatin, just an observation :)
 
scottgroovez said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

I thought Jobs oversaw everything to the extent of it being OCD. The fact something he wasn't happy with was released into the wild was more an embarrasment to himself so took it out on the team.

What really is mobileme anyway? Is that a failure of marketing...
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Agreed 100%! Jobs allowed MobileMe to be launched before it was ready. Didn't he beta test it himself? Does he use it now? If he does, surely he cannot say MobileMe has been fixed and is a huge success.

This suggests that Jobs is not the hands-on manager that he is reputed to be. He knows his stuff when it comes to industrial design. The rest is left to his team, which is good at some things and not at others.
 
jamesryanbell said:
Who said anything about paying him? He was referring to the fact that Mossberg typically - independently - wrote good things about Apple. He was generally "pro-Apple". At that time, because of the MobileMe debacle, Jobs realized that even Mossberg (who was pro Apple) was now writing negative things. If he was doing that, who else was doing it?

That's what I got out of it.
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I was about to literally say the same thing, you beat me to it ;)
 
As a former football player this kinda of work environment is very familiar. It's the no room for error mentality of your boss(coach) that's molds excellence within the company(team). Of the employees(players) take ridicule, they quit while the rest of the team moves on and wins championships.

It might not be the most appropriate way to manage a company, but those who want to work for a company like Apple or want to play for teams like the Patriots have to be willing to endure certain things.

I personally fear that once Steve is gone, the company might feel a sense of relief and might slack off knowing that mistakes won't come with the consequences they once did. Apple as a company right now is use to a pit bull (jobs) running the show. It keeps them running at a high level. Without him, there is no fear that will push them to be great. Just my OPINION.
 
The worry is that the company will suffer without someone with enough vision at the helm and the authority to make everyone do as they are told.

Committees are notoriously lacking in vision as they tend to be more focussed on pleasing the shareholders and power struggles.

But as the iPad seems to be the culmination of SJs vision - we may not see another game changer device for a decade.

Finally freeing the computer from the beige box is probably the last great hardware change for a while.
 
Eddyisgreat said:
As a paying customer from the start of MobileMe, I find this incredibly amusing and wish I could've been in the room when this smack down was being hand delivered hot and fresh.
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I also find it amusing that customers aren't being offered any compensation either.

I don't care that Jobs gave his staff a beat down. I do care that my wallet's light off an inferior product.

(and that i continued to drink the kool aide :mad: )
 
Journojulz said:
The worry is that the company will suffer without someone with enough vision at the helm and the authority to make everyone do as they are told.

Committees are notoriously lacking in vision as they tend to be more focussed on pleasing the shareholders and power struggles.

But as the iPad seems to be the culmination of SJs vision - we may not see another game changer device for a decade.

Finally freeing the computer from the beige box is probably the last great hardware change for a while.
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Ehhh, maybe not. No getting around Steve's huge impact on Apple's innovation and corporate success...that said, I think his presence was only crucial during Apple's recovery years. I think they've found their way as a whole and can continue their MO of innovation and user experience...even when he's gone. He's not indispensable (and I dont mean that with disrespect...its just reality)
 
Shock, Horror... Steve Job's chastises his staff when they screw up! LOL

At least he did it himself instead of getting someone else to do it, so i admire him for that.

In fact, it mentions some demotions but doesn't mention anyone loosing their jobs, so basically, they all got off with just a bollocking! result ;)
 
steadysignal said:
I also find it amusing that customers aren't being offered any compensation either.

I don't care that Jobs gave his staff a beat down. I do care that my wallet's light off an inferior product.

(and that i continued to drink the kool aide :mad: )
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I think everyone got a month's free subscription. I did, so i just assumed everyone else did?
 
Bevz said:
I think everyone got a month's free subscription. I did, so i just assumed everyone else did?
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For whatever reason, I got 3 months free, although I don't think it was all at once. My renewal date is 3 months later than it originally was. I created my account literally just a few days before MobileMe was first launched.
 
toddybody said:
Ehhh, maybe not. No getting around Steve's huge impact on Apple's innovation and corporate success...that said, I think his presence was only crucial during Apple's recovery years. I think they've found their way as a whole and can continue their MO of innovation and user experience...even when he's gone. He's not indispensable (and I dont mean that with disrespect...its just reality)
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I hope you're right. I personally don't buy into the cult of Jobs, but many do. Not only is he visionary (with some help from a talented team) but he is driven. And that drives Apple to excel. So a successful transituion will require either Apple to find a shared vision, or one person to have it for them.
 
Stella said:
Yes, he does take the heat. However, there are better ways of going about it... you don't *degrade* your employees. You'll loose them.
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Sometimes what you hear that you might regard as degrading is a private conversation that is being reported inappropriately, a conversation at the executive level, a conversation in which it is appropriate and normal to have a more or less free rein with the kind of language you are using.

I do not believe that Steve would have been able to maintain his reputation and position if he really degrades his employees.

To be honest, if anything, it seems to me that he treats his employees with visible, overt affection and respect.

If he loses his temper occasionally, he is just being human.
 
all you "thin-skinned" folks need to read the full article....it wasn't as if he was talking to the "janitor"....he talks about responsibility, excuses and reasons and how, when you reach a certain point in the hierarchy, excuses and reasons disappear. I am sure the "janitor" didn't answer the "what is it supposed to do" question...it was the head of the team or the vp in charge of the team.

what is an acceptable answer to the question "....then WTF doesn't it do it?"
what excuse or reason is acceptable that you shouldn't have discovered in your product development and Q/A process?

It isn't, "why gosh Mr Jobs, I know I did a really lame job, but I thought you or someone else would catch the problems before it rolled out"
 
Truffy said:
...successful transition will require...Apple to find a shared vision
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Totally Agree...and I believe they do have that right now. No offense to all the Jobs-acolytes, but he did NOT invent the iPod,iPhone,iPad,iMac,MacPro, MacbookPro...etc. The designers and engineers are the backbone of Apple, all they need is a management structure that will guide them effectively. Apple's principles of aesthetics, performance, and user experience have become corporate culture...not just Steve's sole passion.

Personally, I hope he leaves Apple sooner than later; not that I want him gone, but I think he's killing himself with how hard he works. I just want him to live life and spend time with friends and family. That's just my perspective on what life is really about;)

George Knighton said:
I do not believe that Steve would have been able to maintain his reputation and position if he really degrades his employees.

To be honest, if anything, it seems to me that he treats his employees with visible, overt affection and respect.

If he loses his temper occasionally, he is just being human.
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Agreed. Furthermore (IMHO), transparency and honesty are a huge part of respect. Of course Steve (and others) need to hold folks accountable for their effect on Apple's reputation and stance. It's not like he smiled and then called them *name your word* behind closed doors, while mailing off their termination letters. He did the right thing.
 
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Steve Jobs should be asking also about iTunes Store International same goes with the iBook store.
 
I hate to say it but anything Apple does in relation to web software or web services has been a mediocre product at best. MobileMe, Ping, Safari, latest UI WebView. I hope that changes... but the company is missing a lot of beats in this area.
 
Eh... depends ....

Sometimes, it's probably a GOOD thing if you drive some of those employees to leave. I'm not a fan of treating your people poorly, but I wouldn't compare a company like EA to Apple either.

In EA's case, it's pretty well known that they have a culture of hiring fresh talent (often a first "career job" for a new programmer out of college) and then using them up and spitting them back out when they're done. It's also well known that they milk every successful franchise they've got until there's nothing left to wring out of it -- rather than taking many risks and innovating in the world of games. The "bread and butter" of EA lies with re-releasing the same sports titles year after year with updated team rosters and the occasional new modification to try to justify paying for it.

Apple is very much the opposite in many respects. It's clear that if you give 110% and you're good at what you do in Apple, you get to stay on with the company for many years. (Time and time again, we find out about people running various projects or teams at Apple who have been there since the early days of the company.) They're also all about releasing products that create new market categories, or redefine what's expected from an existing one. That's NOT how I'd define EA.

With MobileME, I've used that service for a LONG time now, and regardless of any "up the chain" problems with it, I'd say the people maintaining the product are very much to blame too. Even if top level management should have defined a better vision for the service, or failed to come up with some creative new angles it should have taken? There were very basic things it WAS clear it was supposed to be offering its users that it was failing at. (EG. The iDisk feature was SLOW. In fact, it performed so poorly, one of the OS X "features" was the ability to do offline caching of its content so it wouldn't be so painful to work with it! There's simple NO excuse for the poor performance it had when other services offering similar functionality worked SO much better in almost every case.)


Stella said:
Talking to employees like that is a good way for them to leave. A company that treats employees badly get a reputation, unfortunately, larger companies get a way with it. For example, EA. But they can still hire because who they are.

Perhaps the MobileMe problems were further up the chain?

Sounds like Apple has a culture of blame. A kind of company any employee wants to avoid like the plague.
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mdriftmeyer said:
You either fold or focus. He is the best at getting people to focus and they have the lowest attrition rate in the industry.
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I'm not disputing, but care to site a source for this? I'm also curious how Apple compares to others in the industry regarding salaries for engineers. MS was notoriously for low balling engineers, preferring to make it up in stock options. I remember at one time MS had more millionaires working for them than any company in the world. I wonder if Apple is similar.
 
Well Apple it's time for another name change!

Take some advice Steve, buy DropBox now before it's to late and roll that technology into MobileMe ASAP, before it's to late.
 
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