Before Cook was CEO he was SVP of worldwide operations. It was his job to get those thousands of people and suppliers marching to the same beat.
And yes, speedy delivery time is an achievement. It might be for computers in this instance but militaries and countries are run on their logistics. While we take for advantage shopping for fresh food most people don't realise the amount of preparation that goes into getting fruit to ripen in the stores.
So no, I don't think Maps are hard. The hard part (data acquisition) has already been done. But it can't be a "hobby" either. If they were planning to do their own maps, and the purchase of C3 and Placebase years ago meant they were, they could have looked around and saw that Nokia, Microsoft, and Google, were shelling out serious cash to get it right Apple spending a tenth of that was naive.
As CEO, Cook was right take the blame. If he publicly passed the buck to Forstall I would seriously question his leadership.
And yes, speedy delivery time is an achievement. It might be for computers in this instance but militaries and countries are run on their logistics. While we take for advantage shopping for fresh food most people don't realise the amount of preparation that goes into getting fruit to ripen in the stores.
So no, I don't think Maps are hard. The hard part (data acquisition) has already been done. But it can't be a "hobby" either. If they were planning to do their own maps, and the purchase of C3 and Placebase years ago meant they were, they could have looked around and saw that Nokia, Microsoft, and Google, were shelling out serious cash to get it right Apple spending a tenth of that was naive.
As CEO, Cook was right take the blame. If he publicly passed the buck to Forstall I would seriously question his leadership.