Mr Mistoffelees

Steve Jobs was responsible for his fair share of blunders.

The Apple Pippin, that couldn't decide whether it was a game console or a PC

The Apple Newton - the world's first PDA - came to market underdeveloped and at too high a price point.

The PowerMac G4 Cube - a triumph of style over substance.

Apple TV - the less said about that the better.

All of those pale into insignificance when compared with Steve's biggest blunder, which was to sell all but one of his Apple shares when he left the company in the 1980s. At the beginning of this year posession of those same shares would have valued Steve's personal holding at $45 billion.

The Apple maps fiasco is something that should have the developers hanging their heads in shame, and for an Apple apologist to go public with 'the more people use it, the better it will get' is about the most pathetic rationale I've heard yet.

Google maps on my iPad is superb, and has navigated me through numerous journeys, both here and on the continent without putting a foot wrong. Why on earth Apple decided to abandon all that for an underdeveloped, in-house adaptation of something it got from TomTom is beyond me.

Serious egg on the corporate face, and yes, Steve Jobs would have been very embarrassed.

I've been reading the reviews on Apple Maps. They are bad. I was considering an iPhone - not now.

there is a bit of an explanation for the lack of NFC here Why no NFC on iphone 5

Found that the only way I can get Street View is through another app Live Street View.

Yes, I must agree. The maps are truly dire compared to the Google map app we used to have. I'm very surprised that Apple have let this slip through like this!

I've now had time to "play" with Apple Maps. Uk satellite coverage is poor. The outskirts of Birmingham has virtually non-existent satellite coverage but the centre of the city has flyover.

Based on what I have seen of iOS6 then I am less inclined to get the iPhone.

I have upgraded my iPad2 to iOs6 and am distinctly underwhelmed. Passbook is not available for the iPad (surely this is a big mistake). Siri is not available. Other features like Find Friend and Find iPhone have to be downloaded as apps. The Maps imagery appears to be more up to date than Google Maps. I don't need the VIP bit in email. Safari hasn't been greatly improved.

Wool well

I've used the BA app since it first became available. It's good, but Passbook promises to be very good. As Flak999 says, it will require airlines to sign up to the idea, but they will - competition will see to that.

Passbook relies on the operating system knowing your location, but once that's sorted it will automatically show a boarding card as you enter the airport. It will also update to advise you of your boarding gate number, if that changes for any reason.

In time, Passbook promises to be one of the most useful apps around, especially when shops and theatres are on board. No doubt other platforms will soon have something similar.

The BA App already allows you to have a BA boarding pass on iPad or Android phone. Not all airports though accept it and you have to check.

Does Passbook automatically open?

Downloading ios 6 to my iphone 4s now. I will be interested to see the new features!

"I think apple are in danger of loosing touch with its customer base and giving the public what apple thinks they should have, not the other way round."

The company was accused of losing touch with its customer base when it launched the iMac all those years ago, but two years after launch it had become the biggest selling computer of all time.

Coming more up to date, in the last six months of 2011 Apple turned over more than $29 billion, on which it made a profit of just under $7.5 billion.

Both were record figures for Apple. Over 38 million iPhone sales contributed to that figure, as did almost 14 million iPad sales.

Losing touch with your customer base has never been more lucrative.

I'm a little bit underwhelmed by the new phone. I am due to change my phone at the end of the year but this hasn't made me say I will have an iPhone. I don't think I will see a real reason for it until 4G is available in my area and that may take some time. Everything Everywhere (EE) are rolling it out in just 16 cities initially and that doesn't include a city near me.

There appear to be some errors in the PCA reports and about EE and Orange and T Mobile. See Orange. The PCA report "iPhone 5 won't support O2 or Vodafone 4G networks" states "Orange and T-Mobile customers won't have the option for 4G either. However, since they are owned by EE it will be easy to move over to the new operator." The Orange site makes it clear that Orange and TMobile customers are being moved over to the EE network and so therefore will have the 4G option.

The review possible needs proof-reading and spell checking. "At first blush both new materials" was just one I spotted. I think that it means glance but blush may be appropriate!

FE

Thank you for your response. I am fully aware that I am not in charge and I never said I was. You are correct that I have no experience in keeping your Magazines Free resource going 24/7 but I do have experience in setting up even bigger systems which ran 24/7, one of which carried life saving information so I do have some experience in what sorts of problems can occur and the time it can take to resolve even the silliest little thing. My experience goes back to the 1970's when we had to build air conditioned buildings to install our Leo 326 machines and all the paraphernalia which went along with them but despite there being a whole generation apart I'm pretty sure the problems when things went wrong are not too dissimilar and in fact are probably a little easier to resolve these days.

My comments were not thoughtless as I did think about them before I wrote them and I make no apology for making them as this is not the first time this year that the site has had troubles and indeed is still having this morning as it it still taking over 1 minute to change pages and also took me 2 hours to log in with constant "There is a problem With your request" messages. When these sorts of things are happening a lot then who do you look at other than "your development team" as surely they are the responsible ones?

This may very well be a free service to users but it is not a free service as your company is not in that business, so if it wasn't making money for the company it would not be here.

I was the first person at my university to get a mobile phone. As a consequence, I rarely used it, and because it was so heavy it lived in my room. My sister went to the same university five years later, and had a totally different experience - everyone had a phone, so in a sense she never left home.

Condom

"I know if I was in charge I wouldn't be at all happy at what it is doing to the reputation of what is after all a PC magazine where people would I suspect expect better. Perhaps it is a time to be looking at who is doing the work and their competency."

You're not in charge however, and I doubt that you have much idea about what's involved in keeping a free resource like this going, 365 days of the year. Your thoughtless comments about the competency of our development team are offensive, and totally uncalled for.

I went with the don't care option, as I'm one of those strange people who just use a phone to make and receive phone calls.

As for 4G coverage, by the time it arrives in rural West Somerset, Apple will be releasing the all-singing, all-dancing iPhone 23!

Wait until you see 4G in action.

I'll start to get excited about 4G once I can get 3G...

Matt Egan & FE

The site has been appalling the last 24 hours and is still very very slow. I did find FE's comments rather strange as well as they were quickly followed by Matt's apologising, yet again.

The site has been had many severe problems this year and I know if I was in charge I wouldn't be at all happy at what it is doing to the reputation of what is after all a PC magazine where people would I suspect expect better. Perhaps it is a time to be looking at who is doing the work and their competency. Clearly more was happening than just an iPhone launch as we are now inundated with more unwanted boxes appearing at the bottom and tops of our screens. Yes you can click off the bottom one but it only reappears again. Just get it working properly and then leave it alone instead of constantly tinkering and never getting it right.

What a poor response from Apple to its competitors. I have just cancelled my intention to get and her indoors is thinking the same. I think I will wait for the Nokia to come out as it has features I like as well as fitting in the hand so well.

I currently have an iPhone 4 and I cannot say it was a good purchase as the iPhone 3 is a much nicer phone to hold. The 4G seems to be turning into a bit of a fiasco with not only someone getting an advantage but the iPhone seemingly not able to work with the other $G specifications coming along afterwards.

As far ad PCA is concerned the past 24 hours have been pretty horrific as far as getting on and then moving around the site was concerned. This is just happening too often to be doing your reputation any good.

I remember back in the day when mobile phones actually got smaller.

WTM

"once the ios 6 upgrade is available for the 4s what more do I need?"

Wait until you see 4G in action.

Sorry it has been slow over the past couple of days. We did put in some extra server capacity, but even then we've been overwhelmed by the response. It's not something we can do much about, I'm afraid. The site lives and dies by the number of people it attracts, so we can hardly complain when demand outstrips our capacity to deal with it. Hopefully it will settle down soon. Apologies.

I have a protective case on my Galaxy III, it is still just 10mm thick! I was surprised at how easy it is to operate compared to my previous HTC Wildfire - not bad I guess for a 77yr old!

Perhaps someone will answer my question about such phones.

It appears to be a selling point that each phone be as thin as possible, this one is promoted as being 18% (.08mm) thinner, why?

When the first thing people appear to do, is to go and buy a case to protect it from damage.