Yes, Apple’s Achilles’ Heel is services. Anyone who remembers what MobileMe was (or wasn’t) knows this.
The MobileMe debacle is where you can find one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes:

“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

It looked like MobileMe was behind them with the revamped, North-Carlina-server-farm-driven iCloud service, but now we’re seeing Apple struggle with maps.
This is why I’m not an early adopter with new hardware and gadgets (online services is different, there’s no risk). Looking at the situation, I’ll be keeping my iPhone 4 on iOS 5 at least until the new year. Maybe things won’t be such a mess by then.