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The whip has been cracked

I think the words "YOU'RE FIRED!!!" have been omitted.

edited from the original text before sending to the MobileMe team was the phrase...

"...and when I find out who's responsible for these trainwrecks, I'm gonna break my foot off in their ass."

"It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store."

Not to give them an excuse but I think Apple felt the urge to launch everything at once...
Indeed, fanbois would have complain otherwise that, this feature is missing, that one too, etc.

So who did the Mobile Me team report to BEFORE?? That individual will not be at Apple for long...

He forgot to say "now drink your kool-aid."

You got that right!!! Steve Jobs took charge of reassigning roles out there... I mean just read this:

"One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue...
... Eddy’s new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me."

Mac+

My e-mail is working fine and I have more storage than before, plus an extra month so as a dot Mac customer I am not unhappy.

Dot Mac was not always perfect either, subject to the odd hiccup.

The additional space is appreciated.

Aug 06, 08 - 12:30 pm Comment from: Andy

Hmm, my Mac feels snappier after reading Steve's email!

Oh, .. No, .. He, .. Didnt, ...

Regardless of the services not being up to par yet, for a first run and from comparing it to some other services they have done an amazing job nevertheless.

I do not believe a blame should be focused on the MM team, but on Apple not realizing they're doing everything in one go at the same time.

A clear sign that Apple is new to this game and has a lot to learn. Doubling market share in a few years has consequences.

Glad to read that the goal is to learn from it, and to have everything working smoothly by the end of the year. I will wait for mac world before buying new hardware and new cloud services then. Which should also give me enough time to save up the cash.

Aug 06, 08 - 12:33 pm Comment from: Not Bill

Now that is the message of a "sic" man. "Sick" as in very good and cool; as it is used by young folks these days.

How would Microsoft handled this? Denials, promises and a gathering around the big ass globe.

I'm happy with the previous .Mac / new MobileMe service. I just hope they build on it by adding more apps. It appears to be a great platform for web apps, so let's see them take advantage of that. Then open it up to developers. "Web OS X".

They'll get it smoothed out, but so far it is a very good application. Better user interface and more storage than .mac.

I'm happy with MobileMe!

And as a web developer myself, I *love* how they didn't bend over backwards to support IE 6. Death to that miserable browser!

Aug 06, 08 - 12:38 pm Comment from: Luke Skywalker

The memos must have been sent to MDN by 'yeah right', 'Objective Third Party', 'QED', 'Wrong Again' and other Applesoft marketing employees who frequent this site.

Yeah, the head of the MobileMe team has been added to Steve Jobs shitlist, once ya get there you have no future in Apple.

Aug 06, 08 - 12:59 pm Comment from: HMCIV

The last two paragraphs were truncated. Missing text provided in {brackets}



One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue {for daily beatings}, 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 {for daily beatings}.

The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services. And learn we will{, through the use of daily beatings}. 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. {Daily beatings will continue into next year.}

I think this is a very calm and measured response given the publicity of the crisis... I think Steve should be applauded for remaining so calm and polite, as well as for admitting it was a team problem... not just the MobileMe, but the entire team.

OK, does anyone else believe that Steve Jobs is playing dumb here? I mean come on, from all of the stories that we have heard about how hard the man pushes, and pushes for perfection form everyone all the time. He had to have know that MobileMe was not up to par.

I believe that Steve made a calculated risk assessment on delaying MobileMe versus the bad press for missing a delivery date, or shipping an stripped down inferior product, just like Microsoft does all the time.

I'm not accepting that Steve puts all the blaim elsewhere. I think that he needs to admit to and accept just as much blaim as the old head of MobileMe as well as their designers. I sincerely hope that one of the lessons learned is the ability to listen.

Growing pains. Far better than cut back pains.

Rock ON Apple.

@Uh Oh

While you might think its cute to use the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid", I remind you that the mass suicide of the Jim Jones cult, where the phrase originated, is no laughing matter. Hundreds of people died to satisfy one man's egomaniacal conceit.

Steve Jobs is a lot of things, but I don't think he wants to kill people who buy Apple products.

I'm with big mac attack. I love MobileMe and it works great for me. I don't need info to be pushed *instantly* to all my devices. If I change something on my phone or mac it takes some time but it never fails to update within a few minutes. If I need the info to change right away (which I never do), I make changes on the mobile me site. Changes made to that will update my phone and mac almost instantly.

.mac syncing was pretty screwy and mobileme is a huge improvement. The only issue I had was that it wasn't working for the first few days. Whatever ... I was busy enough playing with the iphone and the app store.

Great job Apple!

iCal is still funky in MobileMe... it's an on again/off again process when it comes to syncing...

Aug 06, 08 - 01:31 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

"There are several things we could have done better:"

He is addressing the MobileMe team with this statement.
But none of the following admissions were the fault of the team. These actions were enacted by management and Steve Jobs himself.

It seems like he is trying to share the blame with the MobileMe team. Maybe I'm misreading this, but he appears to be passing (or sharing) the buck.

This is damage control- nothing more, nothing less. This "leaked" memo is Steve's way of telling us that he's on it. I don't however for one minute buy into the fact that he didn't know anything or approve of the simultaneous rollout with the iPhone 3G, app store, etc.

So Steve- do what you have to do to get MobileMess fixed and in the future- drop the "Mission accomplished"- we've all heard that before...

"While you might think its cute to use the phrase "drink the Kool-Aid", I remind you that the mass suicide of the Jim Jones cult, where the phrase originated, is no laughing matter."

And it was cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid, making Uh Oh even more of a misinformed and desperate for attention loser.
Who knew that was even possible?

You people are stupid. If a CEO fired everyone who fucked up there would be nobody left in the company. Steve is doing the right thing: admit your mistakes, learn from them, and move on.

"I think Steve should be applauded for remaining so calm and polite"

My friend, rest assured that Steve Jobs has tons of advisors and communication expert around him.
Whatever any leader says is extremely thought over, rethought, polished, so people don't freak out.

Aug 06, 08 - 01:59 pm Comment from: Cubert

I wonder if this was a coordinated "leak" by Apple?

Aug 06, 08 - 01:59 pm Comment from: ElderNorm

It may be just me, but I think that Steve Jobs is the one that pushed MobileMe out the door early. That would sound about right.

And this new guy may have been one of the few that stood up and indicated that it may not be totally ready to ship MobileMe.

You never know.

Just a thought.

en

and in other news, Blackberry servers remain unaffected. lol.

Aug 06, 08 - 02:16 pm Comment from: smyhre

@coolfactor
You can say that again.

@coolfactor

I agree there's a certain arrogance in Apple's deciding to not fully suppport MS IE that is attractive to my inner-Mac child, but as an employee w/ a work laptop that only runs IE and whose IT Dept doesn't allow installation of any other apps, browsers included, it's kind of annoying.

MDN magoc word = work (as in, ugh -or argh- ...work!)

Aug 06, 08 - 02:23 pm Comment from: CourtJester

Rolling out MobileMe and the 3G iPhone simultaneously was probably intended to dismay the likes of Microsoft, Dell, RIM and other huge dinosaurs with a perfect multiple technology launch on a worldwide scale.

Nice if it had worked even nearly flawlessly but it did not for just too many unlucky users. Remember the Heathrow Terminal 5 fiasco? That demonstrated that systems that are not fully tested and sorted at near overload conditions will almost certainly fail well before that level is attained when used for real.

The writing was on the wall and Apple missed a whole galaxy of positive free advertising as a result.

Aug 06, 08 - 02:31 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

"and in other news, Blackberry servers remain unaffected"

Because everyone is using the iPhone!
I couldn't resist.

Aug 06, 08 - 02:34 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

"The writing was on the wall and Apple missed a whole galaxy of positive free advertising as a result."

A whole galaxy? Don't you mean solar system?

I hate it when people exaggerate.

Floris: "Regardless of the services not being up to par yet, for a first run and from comparing it to some other services they have done an amazing job nevertheless."

They have done an amazing job despite the job not being done on time or satisfactorily? My sources say no.

It's also not a first run. MobileMe didn't really add anything except iPhone synchronization, and in fact REMOVED some services that dotMac offered.

I can picture Jobs right after this email ripping open the chest of the (former) mobileme team leader and feasting on his heart and lungs while the rest of the team looked on in horror.
Jobs has to set an example somehow.

Good for Apple for trying to push the envelope! They have learned a lot from this experience which will benefit Apple and its customers.
I liked dot mac and love mobile Me. Apple would not be Apple without it trying to deliver everything on the same day. That there were a few glitches - at least Apple admits it and fixes them. Plus Apple gets a new VP for all internet services (sure to benefit us all) and I got an additional month of services. People should take a deep breath - things do go wrong. You measure service by how well organizations recover and set things right. Name another company that is as good at recovery as Apple.
Thank you Apple!

So what about the people who paid $99 for crap. All we got was a one month extension

If you visit Ars Technica, there was a similar article to this one published earlier this week. Among the postings beneath the article was one from someone who had worked with the MobileMe and .Mac teams in the past. He explained that there were problems lurking in the organization. The network architecture of .Mac was frankly behind the curve. Making things worse was that some of the managers running .Mac and more recently, MobileMe operations had apparently created a fiefdom, and a top manager did not want to hear any criticism from either inside or outside of the company. Even worse, the manager apparently thought a flat-file database to control things was just fine.

We will never know what caused the train wreck. That is something that will remain inside the walls in Cupertino. But if Steve Jobs and Apple was undermined by an egotistical middle manager, or a group within, I have a strong belief that their career options have changed. Suddenly.

I've seen this sort of thing happen before at other companies, including a software company at which I worked. One project I was involved with was terminally flawed from day one, and the team developed a software architecture that would blow up as more transactions were thrown at it. The sick part was, they knew it. And they spent over a million dollars covering the mess up and hoping for the best. The top managers threatened the jobs of anyone who dared blow the whistle. But eventually, it crashed and burned. The company's reputation, which took years of effort, was badly damaged. A lot of people lost their jobs.

The point here is that Apple is no different than any other company, in that it can be undermined by frigtard middle managers and teams that blow up projects. As Warren Buffet said famously, "if you make a mistake, I can forgive that. But if you lie about a mistake that you made, I can be be ruthless."

May God have mercy on anyone who messed up Apple's reputation - and lied about it. A certain CEO will not suffer fools. And that is why Apple is Apple. The email was a very polite summary of what I am sure was a scalding reaction by Steve. My hope is that the company and its employees does learn from this, and from lemons will come lemonade. Otherwise, two black eyes will hurt years of hard work and good will.

Translation: We [ well, you mostly] f*cked up! I've assigned Cue to make sure we have it up to our usual standards by the end of the year. I fired the guy who suggested we do a Mojave type of study.

The friggin' calendars still don't sync right.

Try making a calendar group on one computer, then sync it to MobileMe. Then go to another computer and sync the calendar to the same MobileMe account.

Voilá! It sucks.

Oh yea, just try changing the color for a calendar. Boy, then things really get discombobulated.

Aug 06, 08 - 04:25 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

Another voice,

Nice comment.

I sure agree with Buffet. I don't understand people who try to lie their way out of a problem. It usually never works and just makes things worse. I always just 'fess up and take my medicine. I've never been canned yet.

Steve Jobs is a prick.

Aug 06, 08 - 04:48 pm Comment from: Sir Gill Bates

Wow,

"Steve Jobs is a prick."

Give it up Mrs. Jobs. You aren't fooling anyone.

Aug 06, 08 - 05:04 pm Comment from: MacSmiley

@hairy buyer

"My e-mail is working fine and I have more storage than before, plus an extra month so as a dot Mac customer I am not unhappy."

Right. Same here mail/storage-wise, but I am not happy that I'll be getting 30 days more to miss the services that Apple nixed, especially Apple iCards.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/macsmiley/2652541101/

iCards were simple, they were elegant, and they didn't plaster recipients with advertisements, HTML, and flashing GIFS.

I got responses from sending iCards I never got from sending emails... not even emails with pictures. The combination of whimsical images and text in one small, savable JPEG in the iCard message was hard to resist.

Despite some less handsome alternatives, iWant Apple iCards Back!!

There are two petitions clamoring for Apple to bring back iCards. Feel free to join the chorus!

http://www.petitiononline.com/ic110608/petition.html

and

http://www.petitiononline.com/06291970/petition.html

Imagine how cool it would be to send that last minute, oops-I-forgot iCard for that special occasion to that special person right on the spot from your iPhone!!

I have for the most part, been among the unaffected majority of users. I don't sync everything at this point only because I did not sync everything on .mac. Once things are closer to where they should be, I'll most likely start to sync everything that I can. To the guy above who said something about calendars still not working, that may only be for a few people or it may only be for your particular setup. Hopefully, it will work soon.

I'm not complaining.

Just because several MacDailyNews readers sent MDN the text of the memo that Mr Jobs sent to the MobileMe team..., does it mean MDN can make it public?

I guess the memo is obviously intended for internal use only.

Tough, but classy.

Apple made some mistakes, and are taking smart steps to fix it. Better to move forward than waste time "blamestorming".

This certainly beats flying chairs and profanity-laden rants....