Apple's maps disaster is a big mark against Scott Forstall, a person many people believed was going to fill a big part of the void left behind when Steve Jobs died.
Forstall leads the software development for the iPhone and iPad, which represent the majority of Apple's revenues as well as the future of the company.
When Apple unveiled its new maps, Forstall did the on-stage demo. Ultimately, maps are his responsibility.
He was called the "CEO-in-waiting" at Apple by Fortune reporter Adam Lashinsky in his book on the inner workings of Apple, "Inside Apple." Bloomberg BusinessWeek called Forstall a "mini-Steve," writing, "He may also be the best remaining proxy for the voice of Steve Jobs, the person most likely to channel the departed co-founder’s exacting vision for how technology should work."
This is his second consecutive high-profile screw up with iOS software. Last year he pushed Apple to add Siri to iOS. Siri has been an embarrassment for Apple.
Forstall has certainly done a lot of great work for Apple. He won an internal competition to design the original iPhone software, which has since morphed into iOS, the best mobile software on the market.
But, if Forstall is really supposed to be the next CEO of Apple, and a "mini-Steve" he needs to figure out how to stop making these big errors with major iOS features.
