What is it with Apple botching launches lately?

[aphex]

1st gen iPhone - MAJOR problems with activation servers. Understandable in a way, it was their first time. Took 2 days or longer to fix.
2nd gen iPhone - Activation problems again? Eeek, you think they would have learned, or at least figured out another way to do it. We'll see how long this one lasts.
MobileMe - Well, its been 2 days since .Mac went offline and Mobile Me web apps are finally up and running, but they are still having problems. Far from the seemless transition we all had hoped.

So, that being said. What do you think is the reason behind all the apparent botched launches lately? Has apple grown too large for themselves to handle?

 

[Kmax82]

My guess would be their whole "take the Apple Store down" for a database update mentality. I think they aren't used to this pressure, and then they hype things so much, without having the backbone to handle it.

I'm betting that they didn't upgrade their .Mac servers at all for this MobileMe launch, and you combine that with the added traffic, and you have failure.

On the side of the iPhone activation issues... that issue was probably in relation to the fact that they launched it worldwide. I was honestly surprised that they didn't have activation issues until around the EST launch in the US. Or maybe they did and I just didn't hear about it.

 

[Injury]

Well, it just flat out doesn't make sense to drop the coin to handle a huge server load for a few days and have it all wasted after that. Shit happens. You just gotta wait it out sometimes.

 

[aphex]

Looks like Merlin Mann agrees; http://www.43folders.com/2008/07/11/apples-bad-day

 

[Kmax82]

Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

The .Mac downtime was flat out unacceptable.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

You're talking about the people that waited in line for an phone. Something tells me they aren't going to be abandoning Apple any time soon.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

The .Mac downtime was flat out unacceptable.

and you get to pay $100/yr for it yet gmail goes down for 5 minutes and people are screaming bloody murder.

I'm thinking they might be a bit too cocky and think it'll all just blow over. Or someone is getting fired this weekend.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

You're talking about the people that waited in line for an phone. Something tells me they aren't going to be abandoning Apple any time soon.

But pissing off a decent number of customers from the get go is never a good idea.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

You're talking about the people that waited in line for an phone. Something tells me they aren't going to be abandoning Apple any time soon.

But pissing off a decent number of customers from the get go is never a good idea.

Right, and they'll get over it and line up like ducks in a row for the next big iThing Apple churns out.

 

[Kmax82]

See, this is where I think you're wrong. A majority of these users aren't Apple loyalists.

Apple pissed off the loyalists on the last iPhone go around with the sudden price drop. Who they're pissing off now are the Switchers, who are PC people who maybe wanted an iPhone, but didn't really want to spend that much, or corporate people who are trying to get their companies to buy iPhones.

This is not a good launch to botch...

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Yea.. but Apple could've partnered with Akami just for the weekend and it probably would've helped the image a little to have that stability. I mean a lot of people are now probably wondering whether they should rely on MobileMe. If Apple doesn't get it together soon, I'm sure that some people might just give up on the service.

You're talking about the people that waited in line for an phone. Something tells me they aren't going to be abandoning Apple any time soon.

But pissing off a decent number of customers from the get go is never a good idea.

Right, and they'll get over it and line up like ducks in a row for the next big iThing Apple churns out.

While I don't deny that most Apple fans will still stick around, negative press is never a good thing when your a publicly traded company.

http://news.google.com/news?hl...phone&btnG=Search+News

I think the added cost of the extra servers would easily outweigh the negative in this case.

EDIT: And I agree with KMax82, there are quite a few more switchers this time due to the low cost of entry and the hype.