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MobileMe 'Not up to Apple's Standards,' Says Steve Jobs
Posted by Kit Eaton at 5:53 PM on August 5, 2008
We all know that Apple's MobileMe had a difficult birth: but it's quite another thing to be able to read the criticisms of the service from his Steveness himself. And over at Ars Technica they've got hold of an internal Apple email that Steve Jobs sent out to Apple employees detailing his displeasure that MobileMe was "not up to Apple's Standards." It needed both more time in testing, and a piece-by-piece launch, rather than attempting to launch it as a "monolithic service," he thinks.
Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that Steve thinks "it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store," which is an admission that perhaps Apple had bitten off more than they could chew. "We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence." That's pretty evident, and clearly something that Apple needs to keep an eye on in the future.
History looks much clearer with the benefit of hindsight, but it also looks like Steve has acted to protect future MobileMe development with a restructuring of the team. The team now reports to a chap called Eddy Cue (his name has appeared connected to iTunes in the past) who in turn will report directly to Steve. In fact, Eddy is now in charge of all web-related services, including iTunes and the App Store. That sounds eminently sensible, but leaves us wondering what the structure was like before? And what happened to the exec formerly in charge of MobileMe— did they get the chop?
Steve closes by being frank about the lack-lustre start to MobileMe's life: "The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services." But clearly he intends Apple to learn from its mistakes and not trip up in the same way again: "And learn we will." [Ars Technica]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Ken_Darrow
Posted 7:03 PM 5/8/08
Looks like SJ made a mistake of allowing others to control too much. Now he's reeling mobileme in and with it close to his heart, its going to get fixed pretty quick. I guess it's a bit obvious that Stevie still needs to babysit his generals.
Ken_Darrow
Bruhaha
Posted 6:56 PM 5/8/08
I don't really give a shit about what "went wrong at launch", please just fix it! It's pretty sad when you can't even use your own Address Book when you're trying to send an email.
How can you be smart enough to create an iPhone but can't make basic email work???
Pathetic.
Bruhaha
altus
Posted 6:54 PM 5/8/08
This is good and honest. Not marketing spin. Now they need to do the same with the App Store. Every day more junk gets pushed onto it and the good quality applications and games get burried. They have enough quantity, now they must cultivate quality and price: If the developers don't make good moeny, development will stop. And then everything will go to junk. So fix MobileMe and ban the junk in the Appstore. You don't want to end-up looking like the Dollar Store!
altus
User Formerly known as Arelar
Posted 6:49 PM 5/8/08
steve is realizing that he cant control everything all the time. delegate, stevie, delegate
User Formerly known as Arelar
doobiebros2two
Posted 6:46 PM 5/8/08
But I thought if Steve said then it would be done?
Does he not speak everything into existence?
Oh my...
doobiebros2two
Metkis
Posted 7:39 PM 5/8/08
@cbdsteve: I know what you mean. It comes down to: If anything good happens, Steve Jobs is an innovator again. If anything bad happens, everyone but Steve Jobs is left to blame.
Most likely a way to keep stocks from shooting further down than they have to in a "We know what we're doing" way.
Metkis
altus
Posted 7:37 PM 5/8/08
Well Microsoft claimed for years that Vista was great! They should have sent "the memo" and fixed it!
altus
cbdsteve
Posted 7:35 PM 5/8/08
I'd bet money that Steve leaked this himself.
This is classic political maneuvering - when something goes wrong that you are ultimately responsible for, send a disappointed note to your subordinates asking how it happened.
My boss does it all the time :-(
cbdsteve
ACDlite
Posted 8:06 PM 5/8/08
I just don't think Steve (or Apple in general) has ever been passionate about the internet at all. It is rarely mentioned, and they've only ever had one internet product/service at a time.
Maybe if Steve starts to pay more attention, things will improve.
ACDlite
spimoles
Posted 8:19 PM 5/8/08
i don't want to be that guy but....
MobileMe = Fail
spimoles
Stacky Botrus
Posted 8:54 PM 5/8/08
@altus: Vista hasnt been out "for years" asshole.
Stacky Botrus
Stacky Botrus
Posted 8:53 PM 5/8/08
Cool then make it free and give me my fucking money back byotch.
Should have just run an Exchange server on my POS laptop. More reliable.
Stacky Botrus
btdown
Posted 8:45 PM 5/8/08
Not up to apples standards? Since when have they ever been particularly high? apple's always favored style over substance. As long as the UI was snazzy, why do they need to bother with little details like functionality?
btdown
aaj111
Posted 8:42 PM 5/8/08
"It's like a cloud!"
aaj111
Jon!
Posted 9:43 PM 5/8/08
@btdown: Where the heck have you been in the past 5 years?
Jon!
Metkis
Posted 9:29 PM 5/8/08
@Stacky Botrus: Ahahahaha! That response made my day.
Metkis
Kaiser-Machead's BSDM Shenanigans
Posted 10:12 PM 5/8/08
@altus: Despite Vista's flaws, it wasn't nearly as dicked up as MobileMe. Heck even the NAME is friggin' screwy.
Kaiser-Machead's BSDM Shenanigans
Aegis2k
Posted 10:05 PM 5/8/08
Wanna correct your wrong? TURN MOBILEME FREE. Then, if in a year it reaches 'Apple Standards', feel free to charge for it. Is easy to say 'Oops, we screwed... That will be $99 please'.
Aegis2k
KBeat
Posted 9:57 PM 5/8/08
@Stacky Botrus: It was released November, 2006 so he's almost, not quite, but really sort of close to being right...
KBeat
illutionz
Posted 10:34 PM 5/8/08
@Kaiser-Machead's BSDM Shenanigans:
/sarcasm on
Nah... it doesn't get hyped so much... just that their new CEO saying that Vista is FINE and they are going to use VISTA as FOUNDATION for their next OSes...
/sarcasm off
Very stubborn, no?
illutionz
Joseph
Posted 10:22 PM 5/8/08
All right Google, take your cue, don't rush Android. You see what happens when you rush things.
Joseph
Snapper
Posted 10:19 PM 5/8/08
Mobile (ME) = Windows ME
Snapper
SgtToastie
Posted 10:47 PM 5/8/08
Apple's looking more like the next Microsoft everyday. First their product quality is failing (MobileMe, iMovie, all Mac mice ever made, iPhone 3G) and now their CEO's emails of disappointment are getting on the Internet (like Bill Gates). Any company that grows to large in the computer market just seems to start tripping over themselves.
SgtToastie
karasu is my homeboy
Posted 11:28 PM 5/8/08
I think it's pretty bad that they air commercials about how iPhone "works" now for business but MobileMe was/is pretty bad. It's true, they could have delayed it without consequence, it would have sold crazy numbers anyway. Sometimes, companies need to take their time. They usually don't.
@Bruhaha: You're doing it wrong. Don't question the iPhone's lack of simple features, just roll with the hype. Duh.
karasu is my homeboy
Geoff
Posted 11:56 PM 5/8/08
Wasn't there an article on this site not too long ago saying that Mobile Me was going to be the end of Blackberry? And now Steve Jobs even says it sucks... yeah...
Geoff
MINI Driver
Posted 12:45 AM 6/8/08
@Geoff: Yeah, because the Cr@pBerry service has never suffered any issues - like a complete International outage (Apr 18, 2007 ) - or maybe a National outage ((Feb. 11-12 2008) & (Feb 20, 2008)
Or perhaps Oct 26, 2005, when RIM found that they were delivering people's Email into other peoples in-boxes....
Get over it Geoff, even with it's growing pains, MobileMe still makes Cr@pBerry look like stone age tech - a glorified pager on steroids - LMMacAO
MINI Driver
Strider-No.9
Posted 1:04 AM 6/8/08
Can we sync notes yet??? wtf.
Strider-No.9
Geoff
Posted 1:03 AM 6/8/08
Wow, settle down. Didn't mean to get your fanboy juices all flowing. I was just pointing out that maybe Gizmodo should cut back on the hyperbole whenever Apple launches anything new. They are prone to having problems just like everyone else... quite obviously.
Geoff
Kaiser-Machead's BSDM Shenanigans
Posted 1:02 AM 6/8/08
@thebullfrog: Better yet, can we just have .Mac as it was for free :S
@MINI Driver: Yikes. I remember that.
Kaiser-Machead's BSDM Shenanigans
thebullfrog
Posted 12:58 AM 6/8/08
Can I just have .Mac back until MobileMe(ek) is up to snuff?
I miss my seamless iDisk storage.
I don't even want my money back or an extra month of service. Pleeease?
thebullfrog
barkolounger
Posted 1:34 AM 6/8/08
MobileMe sucked out of the gate.
iDisk will become a killer function when we are able to access it via the iPhone and open and edit documents stored there from anywhere. Right now its just a dumbed down file backup/transfer utility.
Apple will deliver on the seamless- (email contacts documents IM web) promise with this service but in order to do it they really did have to rebuild it from the ground up.
Still, mobileMe needs a tier or two to be honest. A free option that is ad-driven and feature light up to the $99 option that is feature rich and ad-free. This is a no brainer but may never happen.
barkolounger
SgtToastie
Posted 1:29 AM 6/8/08
@MINI Driver: Raving fanboy much? Personally I prefer my blackberry over my iPhone. To the point that I just got rid of the iPhone; the keyboard is so frustrating.
SgtToastie
godzilla07
Posted 1:23 AM 6/8/08
@MINI Driver: And like the iPhone hasn't had any issues. Remember the activation issues with iPhone 1.0 and the 3G iPhone? mobileMe was a rushed piece of junk that was supposed to "compete" with the BlackBerry. Sure the iPhone beats the BlackBerry hands down as a consumer device, but when it comes to business, you can never beat the BlackBerry.
godzilla07
m4ximusprim3
Posted 1:22 AM 6/8/08
*dons flame retardant suit*
Good thing I went with sprint
*ducks*
m4ximusprim3
justinpe
Posted 1:53 AM 6/8/08
@SgtToastie:
Raving fanboy much? Personally I prefer my iPhone over my blackberry. To the point that I just got rid of the blackberry; the keyboard is so frustrating.
justinpe
SurinaDeimachus
Posted 1:51 AM 6/8/08
I have been using this service since the inception of iTools. For 8 years I've been listening to Steve get up on stage and admit it's not good enough, so this apology means nothing to me. This is a case where Apple's arrogance has continually allowed a product to fail because Steve was not passionate about it. They jumped into an industry they knew nothing about and tried to rebirth it with their own vision, when what they should have done is partner with someone like Google. Almost every year Steve says how magical this service is going to be and like an idiot I give up my $99. This debacle didn't just start. We've been going through shit like this for 8 years, and this apology is just a comb-over. To prove my point, Apple has yet to issue the free 30 days of MobileMe service to any of its customers it promised 3 weeks ago.
SurinaDeimachus
OddManOut
Posted 1:37 AM 6/8/08
"not up to Apple's Standards."
Ok...so raise the price.
Problem solved...
OddManOut
BeerFox
Posted 2:12 AM 6/8/08
Made the mistake of buying MobileMe at the Apple Store. This means to cancel, you have to both return it to the store, then cancel your account online. Store users don't get a handy cancel button, though, that's only for online sign-ups...instead, they have to contact support directly.
Did I mention that they've cut off email and phone support for MobileMe?
Took almost a week of trying to get an agent on the web chat. As accurate as the countdown timer is, they might as well just say, "We estimate an agent will be with you in Banana minutes"...this time, started off at 1 minute, then 4, then 25, then 17. Least I got an agent before I had to leave my desk this time.
Bravo, Apple. Haven't had that much fun trying to cancel a service since I signed up for a 'free' month of AOL while awaiting DSL installation.
BeerFox
vegaseditor
Posted 11:38 PM 5/8/08
For what it's worth, I've never had a problem with mobile me since day 1. Was a .mac subscriber and the transition was flawless. Address book & calendar synching = no problems, e-mail push = no problems.
vegaseditor
efenili
Posted 3:37 AM 6/8/08
I don't have the 3G iPhone but I have plenty of friends who do. Most aren't that "techy" and can't understand why so many things on their iPhone don't work.
It pretty much surfs the web really well :P You can't give it praises for its actual phone service, because it is far down the list in that regard.
Yikes. Too much control on this device, yuck..
efenili
ACDlite
Posted 4:02 AM 6/8/08
@efenili: I suppose you mean MMS and copy & paste (God dammit Apple, hurry the eff up!). Because other than that, the actual phone is great. I absolutely love my visual voicemail.
ACDlite
ndrone1
Posted 5:00 AM 6/8/08
I don't know what to say. As great as Apple products appear to be before launch, they always have their disappointments like everything else from every other company.
Can we PLEASE just quit hyping up products from particular companies? The inevitable is a letdown such as this.
ndrone1
bsoft
Posted 5:43 AM 6/8/08
Look, say what you will about Microsoft, but having worked there as an SDET, I can say this - Microsoft tests the crap out of its products.
No, Microsoft's testing isn't perfect. But you can be reasonably confident that the basic functionality in the product will work, and work as intended.
bsoft
jsimondsmalamud
Posted 8:07 AM 6/8/08
mobile me should be FREE until apple gets their shit together. members could either be reimbursed or their payed subscription put on hold until apple is ready to get serious with mobile me.
jsimondsmalamud
SawiniMessalla
Posted 9:24 AM 6/8/08
It all started with the logo. If they hadn't hired the Windows Me team to run the service...
SawiniMessalla
Unseelie23
Posted 11:38 AM 6/8/08
@bsoft: Also a former SDET here. You're absolutely right. MS does test to a significant degree. If you run into a bug using an MS product, you're almost certainly guaranteed that MS QA found the bug and program management made the decision to ship with it anyhow.
Unseelie23
JEmlay
Posted 7:12 AM 7/8/08
At least Apple is starting to understand that Apple does NOT "just work".
JEmlay