Apple CEO Tim Cook
apologized on Friday for the company's error-ridden new mobile mapping service
and pledged to improve the application installed on tens of millions of
smartphones. In an unusual mea culpa, he invited frustrated consumers to turn
to the competition.
Cook said Apple
"fell short" of its own expectations.
"Everything we
do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that
you expect that from us, and we will keep working nonstop until Maps lives up
to the same incredibly high standard," he said in a letter posted online.
Apple released an
update to its iPhone and iPad operating system last week that replaced Google
Maps with Apple's own map application. But users quickly complained that the
new software offered fewer details, lacked public transit directions and
misplaced landmarks, among other problems.
People have been
flocking to social media to complain and make fun of the app's glitches, which include
judging landscape features by their names. The hulking Madison
Square Garden
arena in New York,
for instance, shows up as green park space because of the word
"garden."
Until the software
is improved, Cook recommended that people use competing map applications to get
around - a rare move for the world's most valuable company, which prides itself
on producing industry-leading gadgets that easily surpass rivals.
Apple has made
missteps in the past - even under founder and CEO Steve Jobs, whose dogged
perfectionism was legendary.
"I think they
are clearing the air and, more importantly, clarifying why they had to do their
own maps," said Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst who's followed
Apple for more than three decades.
He recalled an infamous
problem with the iPhone 4's antenna that interfered with reception when people
covered a certain spot with a bare hand. Jobs apologized, though he denied
there was an antenna problem that needed fixing. Apple quickly recovered.…Read
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