[cbs]

I don't know how to respond to this other than "lol".

Apple often releases products that many consumers would consider "incomplete". The only difference is that Apple never admitted to being wrong ever. Their branding depends on being seen as shiny software company-upon-a-hill. That's the only difference here, they admitted to making a bad decision. Their little spat with google just made this an unusually bad one; one that they couldn't paper over.

[smacktoward]

You will notice that the name at the bottom of this Apple letter is different than the name that appeared at the bottom of previous Apple letters. This change may have some connection to their new willingness to admit having made a mistake.

[rodh]

That's the key, when you said "many" consumers would consider past products incomplete: it's quite subjective whether to call a product complete or incomplete. They would never admit to wrongdoing because there'd always be some way for them to argue otherwise.

As I mention in my other follow-up comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4586212, the difference in this case is that the product is objectively incomplete: the data itself is measurably bad.

[cbs]

That's the key, when you said "many" consumers

No, when I said "many" I was trying to avoid this conversation right here. We know software is never done, its not a thing you can finish, you can only stop. I tried to nip this in the bud because don't we all know that I could sit here and use the same exact handwaving to justify the status of the new maps app?

[murki]

As jballanc pointed out, they did admit bad decisions, as with MobileMe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4586814

[hughw]

Right. It took them a lot longer to reluctantly admit anything went wrong in antennagate, and their apology lacked conviction.