Just as Steve never allowed a Japan launch with a botched autocomplete feature, he never let the phone ship without standard emoticons support, he never let a phone application that crashes when taking calls go through, just as he never would have replaced a locally working voice control system with a half botched network based voice assistant.

Apple's 1.0 products were all just so polished until now.

This is the first time perhaps that the new feature has to match solid expectations, but it's still a 1.0 feature. Sorry for the tone, but why all the drama on something that isn't either a surprise nor a unfixable problem...

The fact that Steve let "Ping" go through means we should probably stop using the "Steve would have never let XYZ go through" meme ...

A lot of people have been wondering when Steve's absence will really show. I think Apple's been coasting just fine this last year, but iOS 6 is the first clear signal that they risk losing their way - or already have lost their way.

Personally, as a Linux/Android person, I thought Apple would be fine and had diminished Steve's influence in my head. I may have been wrong.

Eh, if he was gone before the iPhone 4 people would have said the same thing about "antennagate".

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you didn't personally know SJ. If that's correct, then you can't say anything about what he would or wouldn't have done.

Apple made mistakes and missteps with SJ at the helm; they'll make mistakes and missteps with someone else at the helm. It really is as simple as that.

Do you think Steve would have tested the new map application in all countries iPhones are sold? I am sure Steve would have taken same decision as he have already took 'thermonuclear` stance against Android hence indirectly Google.