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In case you missed it, Apple (AAPL) had some problems with its Apple Maps -- here are six of its most epic fails.
It wasn't enough for Apple CEO, Tim Cook, to fire Scott Forstall, the executive who he blamed for letting the Apple Maps disaster slip through.
On November 27, the New York Times reported that Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president for Internet software and services whom Cook appointed in Forstall's wake, fired the Apple Maps manager, Richard Williamson. And Cue was kind enough to fire Williamson "shortly before Thanksgiving," according to the Times.
But was that too harsh a penalty for Williamson? After all, the Times reports that Apple has fixed some of the early problems with Apple Maps.
It used to tell users that getting from San Francisco to Sausalito required a ferry ride -- but it now provides a freeway route. Not only that but Apple Maps has figured out how to put New York's Flatiron building and the Washington Monument in their actual locations -- rather than "a block or two from their rightful homes."
However, problems persist -- the Times notes that "some directions still lead drivers astray, and flaws in the 3-D imagery [remain]; for example, the London Eye still has no spokes." There is no word on whether Apple has fixed the problems I found disturbing -- such as the plunge on the Brooklyn bridge or directing travelers in Washington to a 747 on the runway at Dulles airport.
All this blood in the water may make Tim Cook feel better -- but there's more to managing the development of a mobile mapping service than venting your anger by firing people. It turns out that building an excellent mobile mapping service is a complex process.
According to a Times interview with Tyler Bell, a product director at Factual -- Apple uses it to provide data on business listings -- map providers have to loop through the following process steps:
- Buy data from different vendors,
- "Stitch it together to overlay onto a map,"
- Clean up duplicate entries and errors from the different vendors,
- Get humans to test the program,
- Correct the errors.
MIT Technology Review had some other great suggestions for how Apple could fix its process -- it noted that Apple needs "new data sources, easier ways to contribute fixes, and enough willing map-fixers in geographically dispersed regions."
Michael Dobson, president of TeleMapics, a mapping consultancy told Technology Review that if Apple analyzes what people are searching for -- and a search does not result in a hit -- Apple can flag it as an "address, point-of-interest, or network geometry error." And Apple can set priorities of what to fix based on where people are using Apple Maps.
But it is way behind Google (GOOG) Map Maker when it comes to making repairs. After all, Google's Map Maker—a browser-based tool that allows people to edit map features on Google Maps -- taps what Dobson estimates to be 5,000 to 7,000 people "ironing out mapping problems."
Dobson believes that Apple is badly lagging. As he told Technology Review, "I don't believe Apple has more than a couple of hundred people working on this at this point. Apple may attempt it, but they certainly don't have any system that allows this kind of wholesale crowdsourcing."
If Tim Cook really wants Apple Maps to work well, he needs to change Apple's process along these lines. And if he really is concerned about the customer experience, he should not let Apple customers anywhere near Apple Maps until all the errors are worked out.
Firing executives is one of the perks of being CEO. And firing the CEO is what directors get paid to do if the CEO is not doing the job. Cook needs to fix its product development process or Apple's board should find someone else who can.
