As the anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs approaches, Bloomberg Businessweek writes about the path of Apple outside of the former Apple CEO, and within the article there are some interesting tidbits from anonymous former Apple executives relating to the iPhone 5, Bob Mansfield and the relationship with Google.
With the latest iPhone 5, sources claim it is the last device to have detailed input from Steve Jobs:
…the iPhone 5 was the last model to receive detailed input from Jobs, say two people familiar with the phone’s development. The company has yet to release any products Jobs didn’t personally bless.
Apple’s Senior VP of Engineering Bob Mansfield was noted to retire at the end of June, but two months later in a press release he was to remain at Apple. According to source he was swayed by Apple CEO Tim Cook to stay on the job with a $2 million dollar per month salary:
According to three people familiar with the sequence of events, several senior engineers on Mansfield’s team vociferously complained to Cook about reporting to his replacement, Dan Riccio, who they felt was unprepared for the magnitude of the role. In response, Cook approached Mansfield and offered him an exorbitant package of cash and stock worth around $2 million a month to stay on at Apple as an adviser and help manage the hardware engineering team.
We formerly learned Steve Jobs only planned to add Google Maps to the iPhone weeks before its unveiling. As his relationship with Google soured over accusations Android was a stolen product, Jobs considered at one point removing Google Search from the iPhone:
At the time of his death, Jobs had come to loathe Google, which he felt was copying features of the iPhone while withholding a key feature of Google Maps that allows smartphones to dictate turn-by-turn directions aloud. Jobs also discussed pulling Google search from the iPhone, but figured that customers would reject that move, according to two former Apple executives.
Even though Steve Jobs is no longer running Apple, it appears the executive team seems to be doing something right as Apple is the world’s largest company. But when missteps such as Maps occur, it’s easy to say that would never have happened if Jobs was still at the helm. What do you think about Apple’s progress a year later without Steve Jobs?
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
Hopefully my memory isn’t failing me too much, but I thought I remember hearing/reading/somebody telling me that Steve Jobs left a road plan for Apple for the next 8-9 years. Or did I imagine this in a dream I had?
That’s true. Steve’s roadmap is somewhere locked in a vault most likely. All the way up to iPhone 99!
Innovators like Steve Jobs know what the technology will have to offer 20 years in the future, my bet is there are hundreds of ideas that we won’t see until the iPhone 10 stored in some vault at Apple.
Wasn’t Mobile.me under Jobs watch?
now there’s an interesting point. Steve wasn’t immune to bad ideas, but under his watch the team who designed apple maps would probably have gotten much more of an earful than under tim cook.
Since when did Jobs care about what the customer wanted. About pulling google completely. This quote ” Jobs also discussed pulling Google search from the iPhone, but figured that customers would reject that move, according to two former Apple executives”He states something and everything has to work around that, just like flash.
He wanted to remove Google search, but didn’t because it wasn’t what the costumer wanted. So to answer your question, Steve Jobs cared about what the costumer wanted that time he wanted to pull Google search but didn’t.
Really all apple does is copy android while android updates their phones products every 2/3 months apple does it once a year really apple doesn’t do anything better then android they just match it
Android updates every 2-3 months…and only 2-3% of users actually get to use those updates on time.
That’s right. To get the latest Android software, you always need to buy the latest hardware.
That’s a good thing. Forces old farts to upgrade. Real iFans (such as yourself and I) will always have the latest iPhone, so backward compatibility is not an issue for most.
Not quite true. My Galaxy S II just got updated to 4.0.4 over the air a week or so ago, and Jelly Bean is supposed to be coming soon for it. Which isn’t too bad since the first phone shipping with Jelly Bean is the Galaxy Note II which isn’t out yet.
Outside of Samsung’s flagship devices, however, you may have a point 🙂
Although, you could argue that for the latest iOS software, if you want ALL the features (e.g. Siri), sometimes you will need to have the latest Apple hardware, too (although up to a few generations back you should still have MOST of the features / improvements, so it’s not that bad).
Looks like it’s the beginning of the end of Apple. Enjoy your iPhone and iStock while it’s at its peek. LOL
Peak.
And now you’ve piqued my interest 🙂
I think it’s very easy to put Jobs on a pedestal in his death. Truth is he made plenty of mistakes while at the helm of Apple that people just quickly forget about. ie. Ping, MobileMe etc. I honestly don’t think that if Jobs were alive today maps would be any different then it is. The response to customer dissatisfaction however would have been very different…
…”You’re using it wrong”.
I think a lot of people don’t give the bright minds over at Apple enough credit. True Steve was a visionary in his own right, but there are many, many people that make Apple what it is. All in all, I think the future remains very optimistic for the company.