Wired: Scott Forstall's "five greatest contributions"

[ThomasJL]

Why Apple (and You) Might Miss Scott Forstall

Apple announced Monday that iOS chief Scott Forstall would be leaving the company. While most commenters seem happy to see him go, it's worth noting that Apple is parting ways with one of the people who turned it into the world's most powerful tech company.

www.wired.com

This article illustrates that the destructiveness of Tim Cook's single biggest mistake as CEO of firing Scott Forstall was far greater than many people could imagine.

Reading that Wired article makes it more clear than perhaps any other article that Steve Jobs should have made Forstall CEO of Apple.

 

[Bigwaff]

Reading that Wired article makes it more clear than perhaps any other article that Steve Jobs should have made Forstall CEO of Apple.

What’s “clear” is that article is over 10 yrs old and so everything Apple has accomplished (and failed to accomplish) since then is not included in its, and your, “analysis”.

 

[ThomasJL]

What’s “clear” is that article is over 10 yrs old and so everything Apple has accomplished (and failed to accomplish) since then is not included in its, and your, “analysis”.

In those over 10 years, has Apple accomplished even one thing as innovative as any of Scott Forstall's five contributions listed in that article?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

In those over 10 years, has Apple accomplished even one thing as innovative as any of Scott Forstall's five contributions listed in that article?

Apple is in the moneymaking business, not the innovation business

 

[ThomasJL]

Apple is in the moneymaking business, not the innovation business

With Tim Cook as CEO, Apple is in the moneymaking business, not the innovation business. But when Steve Jobs was CEO, Apple was in both the moneymaking business and the innovation business.

 

[jaw04005]

This is weird topic, but I'll address the poorly written article.

1. Unix — This isn't true. Avie Tevanian is the reason Mac OS X was based on Unix. He created the Mach kernel (in college) and was the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at NeXT, then at Apple until 2003 or so. He was responsible for both Mac OS 8.5, Mac OS 9 and the first three or four version of Mac OS X including the expansion of command line tools.

You can listen to the entire story here:

2. Leopard — Leopard development was pretty much a disaster. It's the only Mac OS X release (other than the original) that was demoed at two simultaneous WWDC because they couldn't get it done. Forstall pulled resources from Leopard to finish the iPhone OS. Additionally, Leopard was considered buggy, shipped with missing features including features that were shown off during both keynotes (such as "Stacks", iChat hologram effects, AirPort Extreme's ability to serve as a Time Machine server and more).

Bertrand Serlet had to come in and fix the bugs in Leopard, which is why Snow Leopard was released.

3. Aqua User Interface — Forstall was the lead designer on the Aqua User Interface. His work on Aqua is what elevated him at Apple. However, he's never taken credit for the "lickable" interface that I'm aware of.

4. A Touch-First Operating System — Apple had been working on a tablet prior to iPhone. Forstall gets credit for creating the first iPhone operating system team and shrinking Mac OS X down to fit on a phone, but there were a lot of bright engineers taken from other divisions that deserve just as much credit.

5. Android — This topic makes no sense. Forstall didn't have anything to do with Android.

Bottom line, if Steve Jobs thought Scott Forstall should be the next CEO, he would have elevated him before he died. He obviously didn't think Forstall was ready or capable. Also, Steve Jobs would have never picked Forstall over Jony Ive and that was the rumored clash.

Judging by recent interviews from him, he sounds like he's happy producing Broadway shows and living the good life. He's never once spoken out against his firing or Tim Cook.

Why are you bringing him up now?

 

[HDFan]

This article illustrates that the destructiveness of Tim Cook's single biggest mistake as CEO of firing Scott Forstall was far greater than many people could imagine.

You're not mentioning this part of the article:

Forstall was reportedly difficult to work with, according to The New York Times (hey, so was Steve Jobs) and even refused to sign an apology letter penned by CEO Tim Cook over the Maps debacle. News of his departure was met by "quiet jubilation" by some at Apple,

Doesn't sound as if he was that great a manager. Whatever you think of Cook he is a great manager. That's why he consistently is on the lists of best CEOs.

if Steve Jobs thought Scott Forstall should be the next CEO, he would have elevated him before he died.

Yep.