Scott Forstall Deserved to be Ousted from Apple Says Former Apple Exec

NEWSFLASH - bloke who was elbowed out the door thinks it's a good thing that the main elbower has now been elbowed too.

It's so easy to turn Forstall into a scapegoat. To all the ignorants that hurray the expel of him and give credit to Fadell, if Fadell was to take the responsibility of the iPhone software, today you would essentially be using a big iPod to do your calls. The operating system would lack expandability, with no APIs borrowed from MacOs, and with limited functionality.

Forstall was the one that managed to port the MacOs into the iPhone turning it into a flexible mobile operating system. A HUGE task...

I can understand that Forstall lately did a lot of mistakes and I am not trying to defend or oppose his leave... Things change, people change... But I get really annoyed when I see some people being so shallow to judge so easily his work and what he has provided to Apple.

Tony Faddell is clearly biased. His idea, of basing the iPhone OS on the iPod OS was shot down in favor of Forstall's idea of basing it on Mac OS X. And I think this was the right decision.

That being said, I believe iOS6 clearly indicated that Forstall had to go. He is obviously a brilliant man, but I think he had run out of ideas. While iOS6 was a great update, it wasn't the revolution I believe Apple needs in the next couple of years. And there was no indication that Forstall would be able to deliver.

In most cases, running out of ideas personally is not a huge issue in a large talented company like Apple's, because there are so many other smart people whose ideas you can leverage. But this is where Forstall's inability to get along with anyone else would potentially be a dealbreaker, because (a) he was unlikely to accept others' ideas, and (b) others were unlikely to share their ideas with him.

Now, the obvious counterpoint is Steve Jobs, who also famously did not get along very well with most people. Ignoring the obvious counterpoint is that Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs, and there is unlikely to be another Steve, the reality is that no one ever displayed the kind of animosity towards Jobs that Faddell in this case is displaying towards Forstall (note, that it was almost certain that it was Jobs who made the decision to go with Forstall's OS as opposed to Faddell's, but yet Faddell only has praises for Jobs). I think the reason behind that is people believe that Forstall is hard to get along with because he is interested in his own personal gain. Even the people who disliked Steve Jobs, and thought that he was arrogant, etc. always believed that his actions were indeed motivated by bringing out the best product. They may not have liked his ideas about what the best product was, and may have hated his management style, but they never questioned his motivations. That does not seem to be true of Forstall, where, as indicated in the Businessweek profile, Forstall's colleagues believe his motivations are purely selfish.

I think iOS7 (or maybe iOS8, if the plans for iOS7 are already baked in) will be a huge indication of the direction Apple will be taking post-Forstall.

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all the ignorants that hurray the expel of him

From most media reports, it seems that those "ignorants" are largely people within Apple, or as in the case of Faddell, are people with Apple who left there but without animosity towards the company.

I agree that Forstall deserves a lot of credit for iOS (and I agree that his basing it on OS X was a huge undertaking, which was far more effective than if it was based on the iPod's Pixo OS). That does not mean he was the right person necessarily to continue the job of improving iOS. It is obvious from media reports, and Apple's actions, that a significant part of Apple's management agrees with this. And with the direction iOS6 took, from a very far off (and obviously heavily underinformed) position, I also agree.

Reminds me of when Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple then came back....hhhhmmmm maybe he will be apples savior in the future :)

I guess high school never ends......-__-

Join the Army... it's high school with guns.

I wish someone would just tell us what the jackass (Forstall) did to deserve what he got. Can't macrumors email some former underlings and get a scoop?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/scott-forstall-the-sorcerers-apprentice-at-apple-10122011.html

this profile of Forstall might be helpful

arn