Scott Forstall was fired from Apple 10 years ago today

It may be hard to believe, but it’s been a decade since Scott Forstall was fired from Apple. Forstall was replaced by Craig Federighi on October 29, 2012, although he remained in a perfunctory advisory role for about six months afterward.

Here’s a recap of what happened… and what happened next.

Plan Forstall’s demise

Forstall was one of Steve Jobs’ closest allies at Apple. They ate lunch and constantly worked together. But after Steve Jobs’ death in 2011, rumors circulated that Forstall wasn’t particularly popular in senior management. Many saw Forstall as a mimic of Jobs’ ego and quick to deflect blame. In particular, Forstall is said to have fallen out so badly with Jony Ive, the head of industrial design, that they refused to meet together.

While Forstall was known for being unpopular (at least at the executive level, many people who reported to him have consistently lauded his leadership in the years since), the iPhone and iOS have boomed, and Forstall’s political standing as the face of Apple’s mobile Software division seemed somewhat insurmountable. He might not have had many friends on the leadership team, but it was difficult to deny his team’s achievements. But then came September 2012 and the introduction of iOS 6.

iOS 6 included a brand new Maps app, using Apple data and cartography, replacing Google Maps as the default maps app on the phone. The launch was a widespread disaster. Apple Maps data sources were largely incorrect or incomplete. Navigation was unreliable and the snazzy 3D city flyover feature had model rendering issues for many landmarks. Apple Maps made national headlines for all the wrong reasons. Some joked that Apple only tested it in California (which actually turned out to be half-true). Just a week after the release of iOS 6, Apple issued an open letter apologizing that the quality of Maps was substandard. The letter even instructed customers to download third-party mapping apps like MapQuest and Waze.

This open letter was signed by Tim Cook. It was reported in major newspapers like that New York Times that Cook wanted Forstall to sign the letter, but Forstall had refused, finding the complaints about Maps exaggerated. Cook saw the failure to take responsibility as the final straw and decided it was finally time for Forstall to go.

The significant restructuring of the executive team was detailed in a press release titled “Apple Announces Changes to Intensify Collaboration Across Hardware, Software and Services.”

Craig Federighi would take ownership of all of Apple’s operating systems, iOS and OS X (now known as macOS). Eddy Cue has been assigned to Siri and Maps. Jony Ive would lead the Human Interface Group in addition to hardware design.

At the same time, John Browett also left

Although Scott Forstall’s departure made headlines, Apple Retail SVP John Browett was fired at the same time. His reign of retail was a disaster, going from set to sacked within the same calendar year. Most notably, he introduced a new hiring formula for retail, cutting part-time workers’ hours to a minimum (and some layoffs) across the board, seemingly to cut costs. The impact on employee satisfaction and in-store customer experience was immediate. By August, Apple had completely reversed the policy and the PR group released a statement openly calling the changes a bug. Overall, his appointment was announced in January 2012, began working in April and was ousted in October – lasting just seven months in the role.

The consequences

Jony Ive’s prominent role led directly to the introduction of the flat design aesthetic into Apple’s software. Almost immediately after being acquired by Ive, he began working on the iOS 7 design system.

Skeuomorphic objects and highly detailed textures in Apple apps have been replaced with stark white backgrounds, line art, and buttons simplified to be distinguishable only by color, without any kind of border or background. Development teams would deliver the biggest visual change to iOS in a very accelerated development schedule.

The (faulty) first beta of iOS 7 shipped at WWDC in June 2013. Reception of iOS 7 has been controversial; some loved it, some hated it. iOS 7 has arguably caught up with broader industry trends, but it overshot the mark. Future revisions of iOS have seen the gradual return of things like borders around buttons, some shadows, and rounded, softer iconography with thicker default lineweights and fonts.

To its credit, Apple has invested heavily in Maps to smooth out the initial rollout chaos. They invested and hired around the world to advance their mapping technologies, including one of their first major engineering bases in India. The first versions of Maps collected data from partners like TomTom. In 2018 Apple announced that it was building Maps from the ground up and creating a new data layer that it fully owns, a major undertaking that involves operating its own fleet of ground truth vans. This launch was well received, and Apple Maps is competitive with Google Maps in many ways these days. Notably, since the 2012 shuffle, Maps has remained under Cue’s purview, but oversight of Siri has moved around different groups — and arguably progressed far less.

It took Apple a while to come up with a replacement for the retail SVP. It picked up Angela Ahrendts in 2014, who helped unify Apple’s online and brick-and-mortar experiences and worked with Ive to introduce major design changes across the retail stores. Some of Ahrendt’s ambitions – turning Apple Stores into public spaces – haven’t been so successful, although the essence continues with the various Today at Apple sessions. Ahrendts retired in 2019 and was replaced by Apple veteran Deirdre O’Brien.

Forstall himself has kept a low profile in recent years. He has privately invested in a number of tech startups and was a named advisor to Snapchat around 2015. He has apparently focused on philanthropic endeavors and has helped produce a handful of Broadway plays. He appeared in a television interview with the Computer History Museum on the tenth anniversary of the iPhone.

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