It’s fair to say that MobileMe is a perfect example that Apple is a company run by human beings, which just like you and I, are prone to failure or making a mistake or two. Upon its launch alongside the iPhone 3G in 2008, MobileMe was rocky at best and suffered several issues, including losing customers’ emails entirely. The $99 per year service looked fantastic when demoed at the Keynote, but just didn’t work as advertised.
Adam Lashinsky of Fortune seems to have gotten the low down on Steve Jobs’ reaction to the service and its failings, and it would seem that the Apple CEO was livid with his staff, and has quite the tongue on him.
Lashinsky, in the latest issue of Fortune magazine — which is available at Newsstands or via the iPad app — reveals what Jobs said to Apple employees in the wake of MobileMe’s sketchy launch. Steve asked:
“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?”
An employee responded, to which Jobs replied:
“So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”
Jobs went on to give the MobileMe team a stern talking to, particularly annoyed that tech gurus such as Walt Mossberg of the WSJ were writing bad things about MobileMe:
“You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation … You should hate each other for having let each other down … Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us,”
As soon as Jobs had finished giving the employees a ticking off, he named a new executive to head up development of MobileMe and many members of the original team were disbanded.
Pretty brutal, huh? Jobs is portrayed as a pretty ruthless person in Lashinsky’s article, a personality trait that if accurate, is sure to scare the hell out of even the most senior Apple employee. I think a ruthless approach to failure is probably part of what makes Apple so successful.
Would you be scared about getting a telling off from Mr Jobs? I know I would. I can’t imagine he’s too easily impressed.
Article Via Business Insider
Note: MobileMe was soon sorted out, and the service performs far better than it did previously.