Apple Now 'More Flexible', 'Less Arrogant' Reports France Telecom CEO - Mac Rumors:

โ€œApple has (become) more flexible, paying more attention to everyone else, probably a little less arrogant than they used to be,โ€ France Telecom-Orange CEO Stephane Richard said during a dinner with reporters in Barcelona on Monday. Characterizing todayโ€™s Apple with the same company under Steve Jobs, Richard said, โ€œI think they are probably a little more under pressure, and it is quite nice.โ€

This does not bode well for Apple, especially when you consider the wavering quality of the software coming out of Cupertino.  The Exchange server bug in iOS bothered me more for what it (and Maps) tell us about the state of testing at Apple.  How do they not catch that in testing if almost every medium to large-sized business that has Exchange and iOS (including the one I'm working for) did?

The Exchange bug is a variation on dogfooding.  If you're going to support something -- say an email server -- you need a reasonably-representative group using it.

With the "more under pressure" comment, that's a state of being, isn't it?  That is, I get the feeling the confidence of the company has changed, and that's, I'll speculate without good reason, a leadership issue.

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