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It’s been a week since Apple unloaded many of its plans for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, but very little was actually said about one of Cupertino’s more controversial software efforts — and there may be a good reason for that.
TechCrunch reported Sunday that internal strife within Apple’s engineering teams may have contributed to the absence of any real news about new Maps features at the WWDC 2014 keynote last Monday.
Aside from vector maps in China, one unnamed Apple insider claims “there were multiple improvements that didn’t make it into iOS 8,” including a wide range of features outlined earlier this year by 9to5Mac.
In addition to “more reliable” data, public transit directions, and additional points of interest, those improvements were also said to include labels that made it easier to find highways, airports, and parks as well. So what happened?
“Many developers left the company, no map improvements planned for iOS 8 release were finished in time,” one tipster elaborated. “Mostly it was failure of project managers and engineering project managers, tasks were very badly planned, developers had to switch multiple times from project to project.”
“I would say that planning, project management and internal politics issues were a much more significant contributor to the failure to complete projects than developers leaving the group,” a second source added.
Whatever might be taking place behind the scenes, Apple still has the remainder of the summer to potentially get its act together — especially given the company’s penchant for leaving a few last surprises for the big iPhone unveil this fall.
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