I think Apple has always had the tendency to make dumb mistakes, but I will say that I think reporting on it has changed. Remember all of the jokes about "It's not a bug, it's a feature" back when Jobs was there? Apple is by no means immune from mistakes and I don't think they ever were.
Exactly. The reality distortion field has collapsed and everyone is less willing to forgive mistakes. I mean come on, remember the MobileMe launch failure?
That said, the famous Apple attention to detail does seem to be slipping, I sincerely hope this is just a transitional period and they tighten their game back up.
People also seem to forget how much of Apple's history was spent as a nearly faling tech company. Each little mistake is being reported to the point of saturation and while I think they're worth mentioning, every article seems to be a "beginning of the end" piece. As companies expand and begin to offer more and more products and services, it makes sense that their amount of bugs and mistakes would grow. When looking at gross amount of bugs and mistakes, you have to look at growth in offerings before major concern.
