Apple Exec: Distribution Issues Caused Botched iOS 8.0.1

Remember Apple’s (AAPL) iOS 8.0.1 ill-timed debacle a month ago, when the vendor couldn’t get right an update to the new version of its mobile operating system, leaving some 40,000 of its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users saddled with a disabled smartphone?

If you recall, it took yet another fix with iOS 8.0.2 to get rid of the nasties in iOS 8.0.1, which Apple subsequently released one day later along with an apology for “inconveniencing the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who were impacted by the bug in iOS 8.0.1.”

Well, to hear Apple Product Marketing Vice President Greg Joswiak tell it, the buggy iOS 8.0.1 release didn’t result from faulty code but rather distribution problems.

“It had to do with the way the software was being sent over servers,” Joswiak said, in an interview at the Re/code Code/Mobile conference, as AppleInsider reported. “It was the way software was being distributed,” he said. “Whenever you’re pushing software and doing some very advanced things, you’re going to have some mistakes. What we try to do is very quickly fix them.”

Joswiak dismissed claims that Apple’s quality control caused the OS snafu, saying the company responded within one hour of finding the bug. The question of who might be to blame for the iOS 8 blowup surfaced in a follow-up report last month that identified the mid-level manager presiding over quality control for the mobile OS as the same person who oversaw Apple’s much-publicized botched maps program two years ago.

In his remarks, Joswiak appeared to dismiss that notion altogether.

Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners claimed the iOS 8.0.1 update disabled cellular connectivity and the Touch ID home button, functionally addling their smartphones. Version 8.0.2 was made available for download the next day, and, according to an Apple support web page, contained “improvements and bug fixes,” including those of version 8.0.1.

Joswiak also told the conference audience that Apple won’t make a low-cost iPhone to rival some Google (GOOG) Android entries.

“Our goal is to make the best products with the best experience,” he said. “And we’re trying to make sure that we are delivering on that, and by and large we do. Our customer satisfaction rate is higher than anybody’s. We have no shortage of either developers or customers … maybe it is naïve, but we [believe] that if we make a better product and a better experience, that there will always be a healthy market for that. And a healthy market doesn’t mean we have to be market-share leader.”