Scott Forstall - VP of mobile fired from Apple

[Boz]

While Apple just announced the news, there are already multiple reports leaking about why he's gone.

In short, Forstall's abrasive personality combined with a series of high profile errors seem to have done him in.

Jessica Lessin at The Wall Street Journal says, Forstall's departure from Apple was "not his decision." She also says he was clashing with Apple executives recently.

Forstall has long been reported to be a decisive figure inside Apple. A year ago Bloomberg BusinessWeek wrote a profile of Forstall, and our main takeaway was: Forstall is a polarizing, political, "a-hole," who has forced out a number of Apple's executives because they hated working with him. He's also a hard-working genius, and a mini-Steve Jobs.

http://www.businessi...-is-out-2012-10

oh oh.. the ship seems to be sinking ;)

Btw, this guy was one of the people who thought would have a really good chance of replacing Steve Jobs due to his similar attitudes and perfectionist approach. Doesn't seem he will be leading anything right now :)

[+Warwagon MVC]

Ah yes the Steve Buscemi look a like

[+virtorio MVC]

1. iOS hasn't been interesting since about 3 or 4 versions ago, and a lot of that is his fault

2. His UI design style sucks, and it's bleed into OSX

3. He's a douche, and is responsible for pushing though some dumb decisions and has caused some real talent to leave the company

Yes he does have some Jobs-esque attributes. That is not necessarily a good thing.

Getting rid of him (and that other clown responsible for their retail stores) and shuffling the other members a bit isn't so much a sinking ship, but them plugging the holes in the ship.

[Scorbing]

Well you have to figure that iOS6 did not impress anybody thanks to Apple decision to get rid of everything Google and replacing it with their own, useless garbage (MAPS) and I bet you anything that A...hole that just got fired has a lot to do with that Maps app and because it failed, he's out the door, so there goes his $300,000 a year job.

How much you guys wanna bet he goes to work for either Google or Microsoft?

More on this guy and this news here:

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-apple-maps-siri-forstall-out-20121029,0,1946365.story

1. iOS hasn't been interesting since about 3 or 4 versions ago, and a lot of that is his fault

2. His UI design style sucks, and it's bleed into OSX

3. He's a douche, and is responsible for pushing though some dumb decisions and has caused some real talent to leave the company

Yes he does have some Jobs-esque attributes. That is not necessarily a good thing.

Getting rid of him (and that other clown responsible for their retail stores) and shuffling the other members a bit isn't so much a sinking ship, but them plugging the holes in the ship.

I never liked that little prick. If you see him on the Apple new products shows, he always looks like he's angry or just doesn't want to be there. He seems like he has serious anger management issues. He doesn't look like a nice person at all.

[remixedcat]

apple mapplegate

[Growled Member]

Is this the beginning of the end? It may well be.

[+Warwagon MVC]

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/642591-pic-steve-buscemi-at-wwdc-2008/

[Scorbing]

"He reportedly had a "fraught" relationship with hardware designer Jony Ive and hardware engineering boss Bob Mansfield. He couldn't be in a room with those guys unless Tim Cook was on hand to mediate. This is probably why it's no coincidence that Mansfield and Ive are getting new responsibilities while Forstall is on his way out."

Source:http://en.wikipedia..../Scott_Forstall

Microsoft is gonna have a ball with this!!!!.....LOL

[benthebear]

I hope who ever else they hire doesn't show off Apple's implementation of an Android feature with smugness, and a, "look how awesome we are for coming up with this," grin.

[Sikh]

Im glad him and john go. Hopefully now the others can start working like a team. I hated john. In the last few months he turned the stores into a ****ing nightmare for employees there.

[Scorbing]

"He reportedly had a "fraught" relationship with hardware designer Jony Ive and hardware engineering boss Bob Mansfield. He couldn't be in a room with those guys unless Tim Cook was on hand to mediate. This is probably why it's no coincidence that Mansfield and Ive are getting new responsibilities while Forstall is on his way out."

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-scott-forstall-is-out-2012-10

[Arpit]

really glad both are gone.

[Scorbing]

"Forstall was also reportedly the driving force behind the departure of two Apple executives in the middle of last decade: Tony Fadell, who led the iPod group, and Jean-Marie Hullot, who was CTO of the applications group in 2005.

To that end, Ryan Block at Gdgt says Forstall was trying to gather power after Steve Jobs died. If he had pushed out executives in the past, there's a good chance he would do so again. CEO Tim Cook probably wanted to stop that before it started.

Forstall's departure is a stunner because he was referred to as the CEO-in-waiting at Apple last year by Fortune. However, that sort of high profile was not sitting well with people at Apple. Kara Swisher at AllThingsD says he was "exhibiting 'growing open challenges'" to Cook.

Steve Jobs was close with Forstall, says John Gruber. And despite Forstall's abrasive personality, he was protected by Jobs, Gruber speculates. With Jobs gone, Forstall didn't have a powerful defender.

Putting the personality problems aside, Forstall was failing to do his job. And for that alone, it makes sense for him to be ousted.

While he did a brilliant job building iOS on top of the core technologies behind Apple's operating system for Macs, he has overseen two major failures in the last two years. Siri was a big letdown, and Forstall led its development. The launch of Apple's homegrown maps has been an epic debacle. Cook was forced to apologize to customers and Apple is scrambling to clean up the mess.

Fortune's Adam Lashinsky reports that "Forstall refused to sign the letter apologizing for the mapping fiasco, sealing his fate at Apple."

[techbeck]

Btw, this guy was one of the people who thought would have a really good chance of replacing Steve Jobs due to his similar attitudes and perfectionist approach. Doesn't seem he will be leading anything right now :)

Steve Jobs was once fired by Apple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

[thealexweb]

They've also offloaded the guy they 'stole' from Dixons group after only nine months XD

[calimike]

@HirokoTabuchi (NY Time reporter) tweeted "In Rare Shake-Up, Apple's Mobile Software and Retail Chiefs to Depart http://nyti.ms/SWqfSM Seems they were fired..."

https://twitter.com/HirokoTabuchi/status/263071211087597568

[Sandor]

The mask is slipping. The knives are out.

Apple is going rotten.

[jakem1]

I can't believe so many people here hate a guy nobody's ever heard of before.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I can't believe so many people here hate a guy nobody's ever heard of before.

What Apple keynotes much?

[+virtorio MVC]

I can't believe so many people here hate a guy nobody's ever heard of before.

You not knowing who he is != nobody knowing who he is

[Scorbing]

I can't believe so many people here hate a guy nobody's ever heard of before.

Dude if you don't know who that guy is, my question to you will be:

What planet are you from?

[Dot Matrix]

Fired for not signing the iOS 6 Maps apology letter.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3574022/apple-scott-forstall-ios-6-maps-apology-letter

[Scorbing]

A great article on why he got fired

http://www.cultofmac.com/198726/why-scott-forstall-and-john-browett-got-fired-from-apple-today/

[jakem1]

Dude if you don't know who that guy is, my question to you will be:

What planet are you from?

One where there are better things to do than keep track of every little person who works for companies like Apple ;)

[mrdeezus]

http://www.businessi...-is-out-2012-10

oh oh.. the ship seems to be sinking ;)

Btw, this guy was one of the people who thought would have a really good chance of replacing Steve Jobs due to his similar attitudes and perfectionist approach. Doesn't seem he will be leading anything right now :)

Microsoft is hiring.