It didn’t take long after Apple’s apology for their Maps app for people to start idly wondering whether Steve Jobs-era Apple would have apologised in the same way.
Short answer: yes.
In fact, Steve Jobs’ Apple issued apologies to customers for varying reasons. Like this one, from 2007:
I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions. . .
We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Steve Jobs
Apple CEO
Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.
Apple never apologises. Except when they do.