Steve Kovach, Business Insider, on the tired cliché used for new Apple products and their perceived shortcomings:
I’m sick of it. It’s lazy writing, a cheap way to criticize Apple for the sake of criticizing it. Before he died, Jobs made it clear to his successor Tim Cook he didn’t want him wondering “What would Steve do?” with every decision. It seems like Cook is doing a good job at that. But hey! Comparing him to Steve Jobs grabs reader attention, so why not?
Amen. Steve Jobs oversaw the release of several awful products (see Ping, MobileMe). Walter Isaacson’s book revealed that Steve Jobs had influence on potentially three years (or more) of future products in the Apple pipeline. So anyone who uses this phrase is either lazy, has bad memory, or is clueless as to how product development cycles work. If Apple releases a product that lacks the expected polish, it is because they released a shit product and not because employees are meandering aimlessly waiting on the ghost of Steve Jobs to provide input.