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Apple's Biggest Hardware Flops of All Time
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I don't consider the Socks as tech hardware...I'd say they're an accessory. And were they a flop? Apple kept selling them for many years.
Anyway, I used them for a long time to hold iPods (Nanos, Touch's) and still love them. Fun colors, unique concept, soft and warm!!!
At night I still cry for my eMate 300, spawn of the Newton.
So far the VR/AR space has been lackluster when it comes to other companies trying their luck with it. Apple may have better luck, but this could prove to be Apple’s toughest penetration into a new category in years, perhaps ever, at least until the Apple Car. Maybe what people really want is the holodeck experience from Star Trek instead of some cumbersome hardware on their head?
That wasn’t a flop or failure, that’s why it lasted so long.
The design team wanted a super clean look and didn’t want a port showing on the outside.
They didn’t want this to be used as a wired mouse and because it only needed to be recharged 2 or 3 times a year users would recharge it when they weren’t using it. With that in mind, there is nothing wrong with the port hidden away underneath.
If users wanted a wired mouse or a port showing on the side there were plenty of third party options.
Nowadays a mouse can have Qi-charging and get rid of ports completely.
Several of these failures were just too early on the market.
Still have my MessagePad 2100 (probably the best version of the device) and G4 Cube; both still work. I still marvel at how durable some of these older devices are. My first Mac (when I went single platform as I was originally a heavy DOS and OS/2 user before the early 90's); the IIcx (which I outfitted with a Radius 24-bit graphics card), still runs.
I did my graphics on that including recompressing the raw TIFF scans to JPEG (for CD-ROM graphics whereas most distros at the time were 8-bit GIF images) which was new at that time (I used a custom software that batched processed them overnight). Would take over 3 minutes per file at 75% compression (many which were above the pixel res of most displays back then). I remembered when I upgraded to a Quadra 840AV, how it would take just a few seconds (using a JPEG plug-in that made use of the DSP in the machine).
I did my graphics on that including recompressing the raw TIFF scans to JPEG (for CD-ROM graphics whereas most distros at the time were 8-bit GIF images) which was new at that time (I used a custom software that batched processed them overnight). Would take over 3 minutes per file at 75% compression (many which were above the pixel res of most displays back then). I remembered when I upgraded to a Quadra 840AV, how it would take just a few seconds (using a JPEG plug-in that made use of the DSP in the machine).
Just remember SGI came out with some wild designs to make themselves look cooler and more affordable and within a few years PCs and Macs gobbled up their workstation business.
YES!! I almost got myself a new MM, but then I decided to see if, perhaps, they'll come out with an update)
My point wasn’t that. My point is that, under Cook, Apple is more likely to create cheaper versions to reach more people. Under Jobs, there was no “SE”. So a cheaper version of the AR headset is more likely. Of course, this also means having more expensive products on the other end of the spectrum.
And about your comment… while the iPhone is a different story (we don’t even have much historical background pre-2011), Macs haven’t changed that much. The original MBA was more expensive than the current one. The low-end MBP was as expensive as the current MBP. Similar with the 14” and 16” (personally, I think the 16” is an incredible notebook, and the price was surprisingly low, few people care about upgradability).
How is this possible? I know it was a flop but it’s hard to believe that 999 out of every 1000 have been disposed of.
The picture is telling you to charge the mouse overnight.
Apple does not view these products as flops as MR considers it but rather products that either are successful or shelf the product concept and redesign and release another day.
The 20th Anniversary computer was released as the iMac with remote and an Apple for media consumption. I had mine it was great I could pop in a CD or DVD and use the included IR remote to control the media it even had a magnet to stick it to the side of the iMac (brilliant).
iPod HiFi also morphed into the now discontinued speakers and still sold mini speakers.
The Newton was a bit a head of its time but it’s basically the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Game console is to a lesser degree the AppleTV. The hardware can certainly run macOS or even iOS but it’s artificially limited at present.
Some of these “flops” were basically released at the wrong time and nothing more.
Apple should have included a similar solution as MacBook MagSafe or a lightening or USB-C in the front. It’s an unusual design choice to basically demonstrate that it only needed to be charged less frequently that it’s not a hassle.
Man, what happened to see-through plastic and unnecessary curves? It’s dated, sure, but who says it could never be popular again?
Tbh Apple has not had much success with speaker systems. The reviews are always great but the price high and Apple always manages to cripple it with something on the HomePod case connectivity options.
I have a history with the Lisa in business. We interfaced a high end photo imager 2400 dpi to the Lisa computer. Had a short conversation with Steve Jobs who got me to an Apple engineer. Before Adobe PostScript became a reality. What the Lisa did, got the printing graphic artists excited. They immediately jumped all over this concept when we showed the graphics designers the Lisa and 2400 dpi imaging they were all in. These folks are the show me types. I credit the Lisa and than the Macintosh graphics capabilities with the complete saving of Apple as a Company. Graphics was the magic key. Was the Lisa a failure, depends on how one defines failure. Lisa was an awesome success.
I love that none of them has a notch. People should boycott all products that have a notch. Then this BS will stop.
The concept and delivery of a suspended supercomputer for its time was unreal. That was the beauty of the Cube.
Yes the G4 chip was marketed as a supercomputer for its time.
Not a separate product, per se, but a major design decision involving several Macbook lines that certainly qualifies as a hardware flop. Butterfly keyboards.
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DI is new and comes across as a unibrow while the notch is less intrusive it’s a stopgap. DI just seems so much larger compared to the notch not sure if it’s an optical illusion or what.