¶ … Apple Peaked" by Joe Nocera the initial failure of the iPhone's mapping application is not merely a glitch in the new product's development. It is revelatory of a larger, troubling truth of the Apple organization: the once cutting-edge company is growing complacent. Nocera calls this the 'law of large companies.' Under Steve Jobs' control, the computer behemoth was able to continue to expand rapidly. Yet even towards the end of Jobs' reign the company was beginning to show signs of disorganization. In this instance, "Apple replaced Google's map application -- the mapping gold standard -- with its own, vastly inferior, application, which has infuriated its customers" (Nocera 2012). Apple's product was not merely inferior to its competitor, its actions showed its lack of regard for its customers and tendency to 'automatically' force customers into certain options they do not want. This is something that Facebook was accused of, when it made its default features for users relatively limited in terms of privacy protections. According to the 'law of large companies,' every company has a natural size beyond which it should not and cannot expand. As companies grow bigger, they grow more complacent. "The business model becomes a gilded cage, and management won't do anything to challenge it, while doing everything they can to protect it" (Nocera 2012). Apple was originally a mold-breaker, but now it assumes it can make mistakes with impunity. This was seen on a smaller scale with a much more limited company with a narrower range of services in the form of Facebook, which assumed it could also make mistakes with impunity when it 'went public' and mislead shareholders about its real value. Facebook assumed that it was 'fault proof' as has Apple.
Work Cited
Nocera, Joe. "Has Apple peaked?" The New York Times. 22 Sept 2-12. [Jan 7, 2013]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/opinion/nocera-has-apple-peaked.html?_r=0
