Well he said we are not perfect, it was as much an apology as he could say in order to not severely hurt apple's sales. Btw, apple is the only company in the world calls a press conference about a problem in their hardware, admits the mistake (we are not perfect), then denies the mistake, then modifies the product in the next iteration (apparently because they made no mistake to begin with
), all the while selling millions of the device and not having the slightest dent in their sales. Only apple with Jobs could ever pull this off.
You might be right that he did overreact. But it was a pretty big debacle to be sure, whole towns wiped off the map, major monuments obscured by clouds, hundreds of thousands of locations misnamed. It's not like image retention in the retina macbook pros (ignored, it's normal for lcd screens according to apple, as if they were plasma screens...) as well as ui lags and stutters, or yellow and purplish panels in the first retina ipad (under the carpet too), or bugs and mind bogglingly bad ui choices in the lions, the mac pro, etc. etc.
IMHO Tim Cook is not a great ceo, btw. He just happened to be at the right place in the right time. Nothing about him shows brilliance. He might not be a complete moron like the coke guy John Sculley or apple's own Phil Schiller (a real embarrassment to apple every time he opens his mouth without Jobs to dictate what he should say), but a great CEO I don't think so. He's been patting himself on the back talking to Goldman Conferences these last two years while allowing one mistake after the other, product delays, software stagnating, overpricing and under equipping (then cutting down on prices and offering better specifications), alienating loyal and pro users, etc. etc. And of course overseeing the biggest stock drop they had in the last 6-7 years. He's been executing Steve's recipe to t, but doing so badly, in terms of the execution. And it's very doubt able Steve would have continued to follow his own recipe had he been alive. What works at one point doesn't always work at other points in a companies history.
Apple's saving grace is that the ceo's of other tech companies are even more inept. Seriously, after 15 or so years of apple simplifying their line up and having simple choices to offer computers, and how well this worked for them, how come no one in the manufacturing business from the likes of sony, dell, toshiba, hp etc. has realize that they should do the same bloody thing and instead of confusing users with X84S3208ABD type of gazillion product numbers and models, just simplify their line ups and offer a small number of devices, optimizing the experience on all, cutting down on costs and presenting a clear picture where someone can choose from.
The fact that still even after 15 years they haven't taken their head out of their behind and followed one simple lead apple is responsible for, shows how utterly inept they are.
Windows notebooks and pcs are also still pop up and bloatware galores, I got one recently, and I thought, boy after so many years, it's still the same shit, it's as if they still haven't got a clue.
Hence apple's pretty safe.