"recall, Apple didn't want to be here"
Perhaps. But even if Apple was living in a fantasyland of delusion that it could control all access to the next major computing platform prior to introduction, it's undeniable that they knew in the immediate aftermath that that wasn't going to happen -- meaning that for more than a year ago Apple knew it was going to arrive at this juncture. And by extension, it means that unless there was some sort of bizarre denial, it began planning for this a minimum of a year ago. And this is how they mapped it out? Either there was sheer incompetence or complete lack of ability to envision the roadmap, or there's been a rather poor master plan constructed. Either way, that's on Forstall.
"I have no idea what Forstall's credentials are ..."
Not to bust your chops too hard, but it seems on occasion I see posts with paragraphs worth of speculation prefaced by that sort of predicate. Why not take a few minutes first to find out? When you do, you'll find Forstall's most recent path routed through supervision of the release of Leopard, in which there were easily avoidable items of major backlash (on which Apple almost immediately had to backtrack). While I don't have any idea what the internal corporate ladder political dynamics are, this does beg the question of whether Jobs values loyalty more than competence ... or whether he himself is blind to what is patently obvious to most everyone else.
I'm optimistic that most of this gets sorted out and taken care of eventually. But when you see strategic or managerial blunders being repeated, what fan of Apple and the iPhone platform wouldn't be at least a little concerned? Or wish for something better (and believe there's no reason Apple couldn't deliver something better). The competition in this venue isn't nearly as ploddingly slow or completely blundering as it is in the desktop OS business, right?
Nevertheless, the iPhone platform is full of promise, and given where it is in the life cycle, there will be an almost constant stream of advances and goodies to make us smile about the platform. As always, measured against "zero" or "nothing," whatever Forstall manages will be astoundingly good. Measured against what would be produced by a top notch manager with excellent foresight, blessed with the sort of resources and talent Apple has, and blessed with the sort of talent in outside developers that circle the Apple universe these days, however, -- and I think that's the standard by which performance should be measured -- then we ought to expect better. Let's hope there's a paradigm change.
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