Apologies to non-Apple non-Mac users, but bear with me.
When Apple launched it's new (relaunched its old) online service MobileMe at the same time at launching the new 3G iPhone, there was, frankly, a complete shambles. The service didn't work, then it did, then it didn't then bits of it did. Over a period of about five days the Apple brand went from towering heights amongst its loyal core support to, "where can I buy Microsoft?"
Now Steve Jobs, Apple's MD, has responded with this internal memo - presumably designed to to placed in the appropriate media.
Team,
The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour. There are several things we could have done better:
– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple's standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.
– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have
launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by
the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later
(if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by
Contacts.
– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G,
iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store. We all had more than enough to
do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.
We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can
grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love. One step
that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now
report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services –
iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe. Eddy's new title
will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report
directly to me.
The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn
about Internet services. And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is
both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service
we are all proud of by the end of this year.
Steve
Now who else do we know who would benefit from saying
The recent past has not been our finest hour.
10p tax rate, and car tax plans not up to usual standards of fairness - we needed to spend a bit more time with our calculators.
It is better to make sure things work right than launch new ideas.
And it is bonkers to launch so many new ideas at once. At least one will go wrong and obscure the rest.
I need someone to get a grip on this. Where is Alistair Campbell?
But the bottom line is when it comes to a free and fair society, there is only one choice. Labour.
