Apple fans and enthusiastic gadget reviewers will ultimately remember 2017 as the year of a reinvented iPhone. But as the year draws to an end, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller has a few other things on his mind, such as delays in releasing the company’s first smart speaker and a “bad week” of software bugs and security holes.

In an interview published Sunday by The Telegraph, Schiller seemed relatively low-key as he reflected on Apple’s year. He neither hyped company successes nor expressed much worry about the setbacks.

Phil Schiller on Apple’s 2017

“It was a very new kind of year for us,” Schiller told The Telegraph’s James Titcomb. “It was something we’ve been planning for … we wanted the opportunity to create a new-generation phone as we’ve done every year and that was (iPhone) 8.

“At the same time we wanted to create something that was even more aggressive, even more of a departure from where iPhone had been going, and that’s iPhone X. It’s something we haven’t offered that way before but it’s worked really well.”

Apple’s long-awaited smart speaker, the HomePod, did not make it to stores in time for the holiday shopping season this year, despite its big reveal last spring.

Schiller said Apple was not about to release a product it felt wasn’t quite ready.

“Some companies like to put things out even if they don’t think it will succeed at the start,” he said. “We care a lot about the quality of the things we want to put out there and so if it’s not ready, it’s not ready yet.”

Apple security flaws in 2017

Titcomb pressed Schiller on a string of software glitches, including security holes in macOS and HomeKit, as well as an iOS bug with autocorrect that replaced the letter “i” with a question mark.

Schiller said Apple, which builds in some of the best privacy protections in consumer technology, has “no excuses” and added the company will conduct an internal review.

“We just had a bad week,” he said. “A couple of things happened, that’s all. The team is going to audit the systems and look carefully at the process and do some soul-searching, and do everything that they can to keep this from happening again.”

Source: The Telegraph

Via: and Patently Apple