Former Apple employee turned iOS developer Matt Drance gives his take on yesterday’s shakeup at Apple. He says that the new division of responsibilities across just three top executives is a big change from how things have traditionally worked at the Cupertino company.
Matt Drance, via MacRumors:
Not only is this a profound increase in responsibility for all three of these top executives, it’s a profound change in Apple’s organization going as far back as I can remember. There’s a long-standing pattern of separating watershed products important to the company’s future. The Mac and Apple teams. Mac OS X and Classic. The iPod division. iOS and Mac OS X. Suddenly, Tim Cook has pulled the reins in. Federighi owns software. Ive owns design. Cue owns services. Period.
This means instead of separating products into different teams, responsibility for completing products is now divided across three separate divisions. Each division will be headed by a long-time Apple executive. All divisions will have to work together to finish, and ship products. This could show increased collaboration and consistency across the company.
Technology writer Om Malik at GigaOM has another take on why products like Siri and Maps have faltered in the public’s eye in recent times. They were released on a schedule, rather than when they were actually ready to go.
Many considered Siri and Maps to have arrived half-baked. Om says many engineers inside Apple could foresee problems with Maps. Why? Delivery was driven by a schedule. It wasn’t allowed to develop fully before being pushed out of the nest.
Om continues, saying:
The schedule-driven release culture makes folks less daring — why take arrows in your back for failing to deliver a radical new feature on a pre-dictated time? If this cultural warp continues, Apple might have a bigger headache on its hands. Ive’s appointment as the Human Interface honcho means that more risk-taking needs to come into the products.
Where the moves that were made yesterday will lead to is anybody’s guess. But as always, we probably won’t get bored watching Apple as it moves forward.
