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iPod daddy: Ousted iOS chief Scott Forstall 'got what he deserved'

'People were cheering in Cupertino'

Talking to the BBC, father of the iPod and original iPhone hardware designer Tony Fadell talked about clashes with Scott Forstall, saying that Apple's iOS chief got just what he deserved when he was shuffled out of the company last month.

Fadell worked on the first 18 revisions of the iPod, but left Cupertino back in 2010 and now is hawking intelligent thermostats, but like everyone else, the BBC is much more interested in his time at Apple and relationship with the recently ousted Forstall, whose management style seems to have upset so many people at Apple.

Forstall was reshuffled out of Apple following the hilarity of Apple Maps, a debacle compounded by his refusal to apologise afterwards. But he was never one to accommodate divergent views or styles, and other staff have lamented his departure as the end of an era which allowed one individual's vision to drive billion-dollar projects: a model which works fine as long as the vision is right.

Tony Fadell is evidently not the one, and points to reports of "people cheering at Cupertino" as evidence that Apple is better off without such autocracy. But people as driven as Forstall are never going to be universally popular, and neither should they be, the question is if they can get the job done.

Forstall remains an adviser to CEO Tim Cook, who demonstrably believes Apple will cope better with a structure which doesn't differentiate teams by the platforms on which their products work.

Fadell meanwhile wants everyone to buy intelligent thermostats, with clickable wheels and colour screens, and is prepared to talk about his time at Apple in order to remind us about them. ®

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