Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Released These Oddly Unique Products in the 1990s
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Printers - there are too many good 3rd Party alternatives today that work seamlessly with Mac (unless Apple come up with some radical new printer technology). Plus, they're mostly sold on the Gillette Razor Blade model - "give away" the printers and charge a fortune for the ink/toner - so they'd be hard to compete with. Back in the day, 3rd party printer support for Mac was patchy and the Mac didn't even have the parallel printer port that most PCs used. Even then, the Stylewriter used a Canon mechanism. The Laserwriter was pretty much the first mass-market laser printer but it's real secret sauce was cheap, plug-and-play Localtalk networking so you could easily share one expensive laserwriter between a whole workgroup of Macs without hiring a rocket scientist. Nowadays, all but the cheapest printers have WiFi.
Cameras: Apple already make a hugely successful digital camera. It's called the iPhone. Smartphones have pretty much destroyed the low-to-mid-range camera market. The QuickTake only really lasted until the big photography names like Canon and Nikon went digital and (at the time) out-brand-named Apple. Not so much today.
I think the only real failure shown in this article is the Pippin. Most of the rest were moderately successful for a while and might have been kept on by Jobs if the whole company hadn't been circling the drain at the time.
The big, epic, heroic Apple failure with fireworks, marching bands and 1000 elephants is the one you may not have heard about unless you were following the computer press in the 1990s:
Copland (operating system) - Wikipedia
I had the StyleWriter II. It was a great printer. By far the most reliable inkjet I ever had before I gave up and moved on to laser printers. As I recall, the StyleWriter had a Canon Bubblejet engine under the hood.
Other than the Pippin, nothing is odd or failed about the above products. The QuickTake was a great, pioneering product, and my StyleWriter II served me fine for many years. The Studio Display was also wonderful in a period when everything was still CRT.
At least this stuff was way better designed and useful than the absolute creative zero that Apple lives in nowadays.
Still display one of my G4 Cubes with round ball shaped speakers and display like at the start of the thread.
We could tweak several of the compoments with third party improvements.
I have always thought that particular system was one of the best visually designed units Apple ever made. Was sad got to see them die from lack of current software. The Cube will still start.
We could tweak several of the compoments with third party improvements.
I have always thought that particular system was one of the best visually designed units Apple ever made. Was sad got to see them die from lack of current software. The Cube will still start.
Can’t you also add a vga/dvi to this or an older vga/adc? I don’t remember. Too long ago.
Can we talk about the 2000 Studio Display CRT which to this day is the sexist piece of hardware I've ever seen
That thing is SMOKIN HOT
Current Apple design can't even sniff this.
They were great machines. We produced a newspaper on them.
Apple and HP were first to the consumer market with wi-fi. When Steve unveiled the iBook + AirPort I swore I'd never use a desktop again.
(Then when the iPad was released I swore I'd never use a laptop again! Been buying desktops ever since
)Thank you MR! What a great memory! reminds me of lots of good products back in 1990
They were beautiful but all seemed to crack right in the middle of the base.Can we talk about the 2000 Studio Display CRT which to this day is the sexist piece of hardware I've ever seen
I never owned a Newton eMate 300, but I wish I could have purchased one when they were new. It seems like an impressive device for the time. I didn't even know these existed until now.
As for the Pippin, it was too expensive.
As for the Pippin, it was too expensive.
Braun as well. Ironic given how influential Dieter Rams was on Ive.
Still, that's just 🤌
I had the Color Stylewriter 2400, was pretty slow and the ink cartridges were $$$$$. They are just a rebranded Canon bubblejet, with a serial interface. Much more quieter than the dot-matrix's.
It actually had metal components in them, compared to mostly plastic these days.
It's funny to look at all these experiments that Apple made that did not work out, but I do want to add that what we call "standard" products were oddly unique.
Like, Apple a computer company, releasing a Phone???
You have to experiment to see what sticks and what does not.
Id like to see Apple try more stuff, like the VR goggles and similar. But Apple is doing too little innovation and experimentation at this point.
Like, Apple a computer company, releasing a Phone???
You have to experiment to see what sticks and what does not.
Id like to see Apple try more stuff, like the VR goggles and similar. But Apple is doing too little innovation and experimentation at this point.
To put a positive spin on it I imagine there is a lot of stuff that does not move from internal R&D and focus groups into the public eye.😀👍
This is fun! I really wanted a Newton. Thought it would help me in school
I had a clearanced out Pippin!
I'm not sure what kind of GPU it had, though it seemed like it could have been a solid game system with better support.
The controller was kind of interesting.
I guess Pippen games would run on Macintoshes of the era? That's cool. I still want Xbox games to run on Windows officially! (Honestly that still seems like a win for Microsoft)
I had a clearanced out Pippin!
I'm not sure what kind of GPU it had, though it seemed like it could have been a solid game system with better support.
The controller was kind of interesting.
I guess Pippen games would run on Macintoshes of the era? That's cool. I still want Xbox games to run on Windows officially! (Honestly that still seems like a win for Microsoft)
Here I am mourning the cancellation of ELO's last gig by watching a BBC documentary about the band, and here is the original Studio Displaying in Jeff Lynne's studio.
Attachments
Last edited:
