Peaked?
Joe Nocera has a few good thoughts here about the tough decisions and pitfalls that all dominant companies face, but it’s also pretty clear that he doesn’t really understand how Apple works. This simply reads like a paint-by-numbers post on the Maps situation.
Also, his argument revolves around the all-too-tired “this wouldn’t have happened if Steve Jobs was still alive” argument. It’s now been just about a year since Jobs passed away. These types of stories started shortly thereafter. What has Apple done since then? Nearly doubled in value (becoming the most valuable company in the world by over $230 billion). Set numerous new sales records. And improved their entire product line.
Further, to think Jobs didn’t know about Apple’s mapping product is a joke. This thing is years in the making. Would Jobs have veto’d a launch? Perhaps. But don’t discount two things: 1) The talk the the Apple/Google contract was simply up and neither side wanted to renew. 2) That the maps have to be live with millions of users to truly improve.
The main problem is that the “Has Apple Peaked” article has been written dozens if not hundreds of times already under various headlines in the past year (and even before then, believe it or not). And some don’t even include the wussy “?”, as Nocera does.
Has Joe Nocera hedged his column?
Yes.
