Unplanned Pre-obsolescence

It's interesting to see how the 12-24 month replacement cycles chosen by most iPhone users now sets the rythm of the business for Apple and forces it to work to releasing software against date driven deadlines rather than quality / completeness based ship cycles.

The iOS 6 Maps debacle and Forstall's resulting exit being a great case in point, and shows how much of a slave to its own success Apple has become. The iPhone business is a monster that insists on an annual refresh and whose scale in revenue terms makes it very risky to change too much for fear of hampering appeal and shortly thereafter a significant double digit percentage of Apple's annual revenues.