Top 10 Apple Flops 993
Kelly McNeill writes "Though Apple computer is known for some of the computing and technology industry's most notable innovations, its not as if the company hasn't also taken its lumps. Thomas Hormby submitted the following editorial contribution to osOpinion/osViews, which supplies us with his top ten list of Apple's (and some of associated partners) most significant flops throughout the company's history."
Microsoft Word 6? (Score:5, Interesting)
In it's place, I'd like to nominate the Apple
Most recent blunder (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple misjudged product availability and actually ran out of iMac G4's for two months before they released the iMac G5.
Yeah, the iMac G5 has relaly been making sales records at Apple, but how much of that is due to there being nothing in the iMac line for people to buy for two months?
Flops at Apple are predictable (Score:5, Interesting)
It has always been about Steve Jobs. The man has insight and what could almost be considered clairvoyance when it comes to building things that people crave. God knows that I'm one of those at his feet, weeping and bathing him in frankincense.
Always liked the Tangerine iMac (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I always loved that color and thought it was the most stylish one of the lot.
"she comes in colors everywhere..."
Sam
Flops, big deal! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Speaking for the Apple owners... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cube? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cube "Cracks" (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who don't remember, the Cubes would occasionally develop these "cracks," for lack of a better term. IIRC, owners started to see hairline fissures slowly appear underneath the ploycarbonate surface. Apple played it off by saying it added to the "personality" of the cubes, since each set of cracks was unique.
Heck, I love the cubes and I'd probably put them in that blunder list; if Apple could've figured out a way to make them a bit more powerful or a bit cheaper, they may have been succesful. As it was, their exorbitant pricing simply reinforced the notion that "macs are too expensive."
We definetely have a trouble with some companys .. (Score:0, Interesting)
We would like to be able to love this companys, we are geeks, we love technology, and we tend to try to extend that love to the creators of the technology that we like, but this are busnisses, that are trying to make money. That fact doesn't make them more or less evil, but it shows us that instead of loving or hating them, we should understand that they are part of a market, in which they compete, and that we are their customers. The only card we can play is the decition to be their customer or not, and we should take that decition based on our own ethics, and in the general politics of the company, or on how much we need their products, but _NOT_ on their slashdot karma.
ALMAFUERTE
Re:Apple ///, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I'm still pissed at Apple for abandoning the Apple
And don't even get me started on the Apple
Talk about backwards compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the kind of backwards compatibility Microsoft, Sony, etc. can only dream of.
Re:Cube? (Score:4, Interesting)
Alone, or especially when combined with a still new and pricey LCD flat panel, it was perceived as very expensive for what it was - a miniaturized desktop with no slots.
Petite computers hadn't been around for long (I think Shuttle actually came after, maybe in fact inspired by the Cube) and in the US market, the Cube was a radical approach going against the "gas guzzling SUV paradigm," where most male computer buyers still equate bigger with better.
It also had a significant number of detractors in the press, who all gleefully reported the "cracks" (scratches on the lucite moulding for the first batch) as if the thing was going to split open like a lizard egg.
Still, they sold 100,000, created a loyal following of uber-elite modders, contributed R&D to the iMac G4 and Mac mini, and were responsible for the coolest (pun intended) press release signaling its termination: "Apple is putting the Cube on ice."
Not a total flop.
no mention of the powerbook 5300? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd say this was a bigger 'flop' than most of the items listed, especially things like 'MS Word 6' and a few of the wackier iMac colors. It's even worse than the 'hockey puck mouse'.
My, how quickly they forget...
Re:Apple ///, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple's final solution was to sell the Mac LC with the entire Apple ][ chipset on a daughtercard. IIRC, that didn't sell too well and most schools just bought Macs or PC's.
Re:Apple ///, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the heck isn't the Apple /// in there?
I heard it was such a flop that Apple became kind of superstitious about their naming conventions and refused to name any subsequent products beyond "][". They had [apple-history.com] the Apple I, Apple ][, and Apple ][+ before the Apple ///. After the Apple /// flopped, they went back to "][" and had the Apple //e, Apple //c, and Apple //gs. For the Macintosh line, they had the Mac //, Mac //x, Mac //cx, Mac //ci, Mac //si, Mac //fx, Mac //vi, and Mac //vx. They never used "///" again, or any roman numeral above it.
Even now, they have dumped numbering their product lines altogether, despite the constant upgrades in hardware configurations. The only exception is the processor suffix (G4 or G5), which doesn't really indicate the product generation anyway. This applies to iPods as well.
Re:Microsoft Word 6? (Score:3, Interesting)
> perhaps the list's originator doesn't even know about it.
As stated in the
Re:Limits of Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
But my guess is three things... PRICE and PIRACY.
Apple boxes are way too high priced for what you get, IMHO and the opinions of ALOT of people... if I can do the same thing on a PC for half the price, I will). Even their high end systems, are not high end by my standards... I mean if I'm paying close to $3000 (CND money) for a machine, I expect it to have a better video card then a Radeon 9600 (currently i have a 9800 pro which cost me $400 CND.. the whole machine it's in
Geek factor.. even tho I hate the term geek, nerd is much better. I prefer to build my own machines, even tho it's not very exciting anymore as I've done it a billion times, I prefer to chose every piece that is going into it.
Piracy... who here knows someone (besides a company) that pays for all their software? Piracy is accepted by most people as a worthwhile risk. It's much harder to find "warez" for the macs then for pcs. Incidently, I believe this is also a contributing factor as why Windows has the monopoly... both pirating of their OS, and of the apps for it. Kinda funny how MS is trying to fight it now.
Also, I have never met anyone who bought a mac to throw Linux on... altho I know it is possible. Yet friends of mine, and myself included, have bought machines specifically for linux (or BSD)
Re:Apple ///, no. Apple SOS, yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, if SOS is anything like ProDOS from an assembly language point, I can't possibly see it being all -that- bad. After experiencing the hell that was programming to the File Manager for DOS 3.3, ProDOS (and perhaps SOS, since ProDOS was based on SOS) is a dream.
From what little I've used of the Apple III (on the Sara emulator), it seems fairly impressive. No way I'd be able to hack it like I can any Apple II series, though...
Re:Limits of Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the size of a company determine the quality of it's product?
Does the quality of a product determine it's company's size?
If you answer yes to either of those questions, you're out of your fucking mind.
I'd also like to point out that the year-old article you're linking to predicts that the iPod will be crushed by competitors such as the Dell DJ "selling for as little as $299", that the iTunes Music Store will be crushed by Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and Sony, and that it will take "at least a year" for Apple to sell 100 million songs. None of these things are even remotely true.
My Top...err, Bottom Ten List. (Score:5, Interesting)
What, you were expecting one button mouse to be here?
k.
Re:Apple ///, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally, about 2 weeks before my PhD thesis was due, the 'drop' method didn't resurrect my computer. After about half an hour of poking at chips, attempting restarts etc, it eventually came back, but although Linux reported the same BogoMIPs, it was noticably about 1/4 the speed it had been. My theory is somehow it came back with cache disabled. (Cache was on separate chips in those days.)
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason Apple gets credit around here (and believe me, they used to get NO love whatsoever) is because they consistently deliver kick-ass products. If I could read the article, I'd be curious to count how many of these "flops" were presided over by Mr. Jobs, and how many were the responsibility of the not-visionary CEOs Apple got beleaguered under.
Re:Limits of Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, installing it with on a serial port console was a little annoying... but once we got an iso setup right it wasn't too bad.
I also don't happen to think 3k for a dual processor box with a Nvidia 6800 Ultra DDL card capable of driving two 30" 2560x1600 resolution displays is too bad a price.
Course... that being said, I do still have a x86 PC running linux on my desktop.
Re:Apple ///, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Word on the street is the III's engineers had to add circuitry to keep the advanced capabilities from being used from emulation mode. It's also said that if the power lamp was burnt out, the computer wouldn't boot up!
Perhaps the best two things to come out of the Apple III were Appleworks (an Apple II port of
Re:Flops at Apple are predictable (Score:4, Interesting)
I started out in 1977 on a first-run Apple ][ Standard (Integer ROMs and casette tape.) I eventually upgraded to an Applesoft BASIC card, 4 Mhz. turbo card, Corvus hard drive, the works. I still have all that stuff, actually, except the Corvus which died long ago. I was one of the early crowd of Apple hackers: in 1978 I was selling a simple speech synthesizer that plugged into the game paddle port
Now, his decision to unceremoniously drop the Apple
Re:Clones? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Flops at Apple are predictable (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore it was Scully who turned Apple into something more than just a computer company, the whole "brand icon" thing was his idea. In that sense, the Jobs II era is really just walking in Scully's footsteps.
A special flop the Slashdot crowd will appreciate: (Score:5, Interesting)
A/UX, the first Unix OS for Mac.
A/UX included special battery support for the Macintosh Portable (yeah, the first portable, the flop, the really heavy one that used lead-acid batteries) and also had sleep support, which was totally unheard of at that time.
I took a certification class in A/UX, and the Apple guys told me they didn't seriously expect to sell many units, the product only existed to fulfill requirements for government sales that specified a Unix OS must be available for any personal computer CPU being requisitioned. Nevermind that the users never intended to USE Unix, the bids were rigged against Macs by specifying Unix must be available, and it wasn't, so that meant Macs were disqualified from bids and only PCs would be considered. But Apple won back some major government business by meeting this petty requirement. Cost em a bundle though.
Re:II GS (Score:5, Interesting)
Without a time machine that would have been impossible. The successful days of Apple in education were pre-Mac. They basically ruled the education market in the early to mid 1980's. Logically, if they had wanted to keep the market, they should have maintained the ][ series rather than launching an incompatible computer. There's no real reason why we couldn't have 3Ghz 32-bit descendants of the 6502 today.
Re:Powered by "PostNuke" (Score:4, Interesting)
I've pretty much hated chat ever since, and from what I can see of IRC and AIM spam, things haven't much improved.
It was eerie, though, how much it felt like AOL, which I was also on (being a refugee from the craptastic Prodigy).
The frightening thing is, I still have an AOL account. Never set your parents' sites up on a non-portable system.
Apple's Great Quality Meltdown (Score:3, Interesting)
Every major product shipped in late 95-early 96 under Spindler (*spit*) had a major flaw requiring recall or replacement.
System 7.5, the 6200 logic board, the plastics on the Powerbook 5300, flaming batteries on powerbooks, video cables on several all-in-one models, and many other flaws. I worked in Apple Tech support at the time and it was hell.
These were not failures of design but they were severe failures in execution, specifically Spindler's (*spit*) dismantling of all quality control groups and procedures within the company. The "Great Quality Implosion", as veterans call it, would have killed any normal company. Only Apple's near fanatical consumer base saved the company.
Re:Internationalized software was not a flop! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:II GS (Score:3, Interesting)
The second job I had was 75% Mac. The few PCs even had LocalTalk cards. They'd also stopped buying them. Reasons: Incompatibile networking, ridiclous prices, no RAD tools like VB, crappy delivery schedules, poor service, etc etc etc.
These were both large "enterprise" corps (admittedly in Apple's back yard in the Bay Area). But to say that Apple had no chance in the large business market is ridiclous. They were in that market, they just couldn't respond properly to customer demand.
Re:A special flop the Slashdot crowd will apprecia (Score:3, Interesting)
I definately think they tried to make a go of it. It just didn't work.
I think what killed it was the bang-for-the-buck problem. The serious UNIX users were running on RISC-based workstations far more powerful than a Mac. The cheapskates were running UNIX on PC's (SCO and its many competitors at the time). There just didn't seem to be a market for a UNIX box that was expensive and slow. Maybe if they had brought A/UX along when they moved to PowerPC it could have finally caught some traction.
Then there was Apple's 2nd foray into UNIX -- the Apple Network Server back in 1996. It was an Apple machine designed to run IBM's AIX. I think it was available for about 5 minutes before they cancelled the project - one of Apple's most impressive flops.
They also had mkLinux which was pretty cool (linux with, IIRC, a 1.3 kernel running under Mach on powermacs) I actually used this for quite awhile - I still have a 8100 that can boot it. The project never really went anywhere... I'm not sure if I can call it a "flop" since it was never an official product though.
Apple's fourth foray into UNIX seems to be working out better for them, though
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up (Score:4, Interesting)
I liked Apple then. I like them better now. Go Steve Go.
Re:II GS (Score:5, Interesting)
After Steve Jobs left Apple, he started NeXT which was obviously oriented towards both big and small business. In the meantime Apple stagnated and didn't revive until he came back and ported NeXTStep to Mac hardware.
If he wasn't kicked out from Apple, NeXT would no doubt have Mac application compatibility. Then Apple would be the only company with UNIX workstations that also run all popular personal computer apps. Sun and Microsoft would be in deep trouble. And by '95, Apple would run NextStep on consumer Macs and Microsoft wouldn't have any product with unique advantages to grab 90%+ market share.
Re:Apple's Great Quality Meltdown (Score:4, Interesting)
The group wasn't composed entirely of geeks--most of them were smart, talented diligent people who knew their products and loved working at Apple. The advantages of it are readily apparent: Economies of scale... independence... cross-training... centralized quality information for management, engineering and marketing... It was an excellent idea and an excellent group.
I pointed this out in an email to John Sculley when the breakup was proposed. He answered me, said that the points I brought up were good ones that hadn't been raised to him before and asked if I minded if he took it up with the responsible managers.
Next thing I knew, I was in a small conference room with five layers of management and HR suggesting that I might want to forget my objections and shut the hell up. The breakup went through and quality took a nosedive for a while.
However, the people from that group were dispersed throughout the company. As time went on, they gained control of their own quality organizations. By the time Steve Jobs returned, he had seasoned, knowledgeable, dedicated quality people throughout the company. Many of them are still there.
Buried in a field? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nor do I believe that 16.7 pounds would be sufficient for the average aircraft tray table to "snap under the weight" - if they were, airlines would be regularly repairing them every time a passenger accidentally leaned their body weight against an extended tray table when avoiding the in-flight service cart.
You don't know how big a flop.... (Score:2, Interesting)
But the serial number, I shit you not, was 008.
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up (Score:3, Interesting)
Failed_Apple_initiatives [wikipedia.org]
atleast they learn from their mistakes unlike other wellknown companies.
its pretty aptly titled.. could have made a better post than this one (which has anyway been slashdotted so i havent seen it yet).
btw how well does wikipedia take to slashdotting ?
vik
One word, Jagubox (Score:3, Interesting)
http://mirror.apple.com/mirrors/jagubox.gsfc.na
I still have my A/UX 3.0 CD's with the final 3.x update CD's, A/UX user guide and X manuals as well. I keep a Quadra 700 around in case I ever get nostalgic.
A/UX is the UNIX I ran my first Apache server on. I bought the A/UX CD's off of Usenet's AUX channel. I think Apache still has A/UX compiler diretives in it's source code, have'nt checked lately.
Apple created an amazing flavor of Unix with A/UX. It ran OS 7.1 as a process, integrated some nice BSD type features into it's SVR2 core and then added a bunch of Apple extras that made administration quite handy.
I think A/UX was reflective of something happening in Apple, mostly lead by Jobs. At the time Apple had worked with Sun on developing a Unix with an Apple UI, but Apple backed out. However, when Steve jobs was forced out of Apple he went and started NeXT, basicaly a Unixy Mac. Then Steve comes back to Apple and we have OSX. Not exactly sure what it all means but Apple spent a long time with what was basicaly OS 7 while Steve Jobs had become a Unix head. Apple had an opportunity to really do something special with A/UX but several factors got in their way, mainly themselves and AT&T licensing I'm sure. BSD got them out of the licensing bind.
Kind Regards
Re:One technical Apple failure (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A special flop the Slashdot crowd will apprecia (Score:2, Interesting)
When I started at VT in the '85, one of the requirements for incoming CS majors was a Mac XL (rebranded Lisa 2), with a version of SysV.
That was a HUGE fiasco, the machine was cancelled before VT even started giving them out. So our class was stuck with this huge paperweight, that might run Mac SW or might not, MacWorks was good, but not perfect.
Re:So much easier to knock down than to build up (Score:3, Interesting)
It's nice once in a while to be reminded that nobody's perfect, and despite failures one can be wildly successful. We're talking about an American computer company here, not our supreme dictator. I think we can poke fun occassionally.
"I'd actually be defending MS on the same charge"
So I'm curious, how exactly do you support yourself if you spend all day and night defending Microsoft on Slashdot? Or do you only read Apple related posts? I find it amusing that with all the negative MS and Gates stories on here, the second an even remotely negative Apple story goes up, first post is telling us how sad it is to "knock down" rather than "build up".
The Lame meter is officially broken.
PS- MacTV. Perfect example. We could have a very positive discussion about how far ahead of their time they were with that one, but it still remains a huge flop for Apple. Why must you assume flops are a bad thing? Hmmmm?
Apple's Biggest Flop: Losing Nerd Mindshare in 86' (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One technical Apple failure (Score:3, Interesting)
Another thing that came out of the Pippin development was the set top box. Many sellers on eBay sell this as a prototype and say it didn't do well
If anyone reading this knows where I can get the Apple remote for the set top box - lemme know.
Re:II GS (Score:4, Interesting)
The mac turnaround came with the LaserWriter and the "Fat Mac" (Mac 512) in 1985. By Autumn of 1986, when the IIGS came out, the Mac was well-established as the graphics machine. MacDraw was incredible. The page layout programs (_Ready,_Set,_Go!_, 1-2-3, PageMaker) and the LaserWriter had already created a new industry. Yes, they were pricey.
By 1987, it was clear that the 65816 processor would never develop "legs". Apple, by itself, was too small to keep Western Design Center in business and making competitive processors. The IIGS was 2.8 MHz; the Macintosh was 8 MHz. And the 68000 wasn't just Apple's: Atari, Amiga, Apollo, and Sun were also using 68000s.
The Mac system architecture was clean, with plenty of room to grow. Only minor tweaks were needed to enable memory to grow past 8 Megabytes (the "32-bit clean" issue with Applications and firmware in ROMs) when a 1 MB machine was big, and PCs were still struggling to get past 640K. The IIGS couldn't grow like that. GS/OS was clearly porting Mac technologies back to the IIGS.
The Apple
Your Game History Is Less Than Accurate (Score:3, Interesting)
SimCity? First released in 1987 on Commodore 64 [gamespot.com] (first demo in 1985!). Re-released in 1989 simultaneously on PC and Mac [chello.at]. Also released in 1989 for Amiga, Spectrum/Timex-Sinclair, Amstrad, and Atari ST.
Tetris? First implemented on Electronica 60 [wikipedia.org] (PDP-11 clone!) in 1985. Ported to IBM PC during 1986 [wikipedia.org] and circulated. Ported to Apple II and Commodore 64 in 1986 [atarihq.com]. Spectrum Holobyte commercial re-release on IBM PC in 1986.
Re:OS - flop? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. That's a pretty wild interpretation. It's kind of like saying that because cars have wheels and we've had wheels since before the beginning of recorded history that cars aren't all that big a deal.
Let's start at the beginning: Yes, elements of the Mac OS are based on UNIX. But only stuff like the scheduler and the process model. The kernel itself and fundamental things like interprocess communication are based on Mach, not UNIX. And, of course, none of the user experience has anything to do with UNIX.
Mac OS X really has nothing to do with PostScript. The Quartz 2D drawing model was deliberately designed to be very similar to PDF, making it trivial to translate from PDF to Quartz 2D and back, but that's really where it ends. The window-drawing subsystem -- Quartz Compositor, now Quartz Extreme --has nothing to do with either PDF or PostScript. And, of course, Quartz 2D is just one way of putting lines on the screen. OpenGL is another, and even QuickDraw is still supported, though no new work is being done on it.
Yes, the Objective-C language dates back quite a ways, but programs written for the Mac have about as little to do with the Objective-C language itself as programs written for Windows have to do with the C language itself. What makes the Mac unique are the Cocoa application programming interfaces which were based on work done at NeXT in the late 80s and early 90s, but which go way, way, way beyond that.
So you see, to imply that Mac OS X is based on 80s-era technologies is just plain misleading. In fact, Mac OS X was the culmination of decades of work in all sorts of areas. It's not like somebody in Cupertino just decided one day that everything invented since 1988 was crap and that the wave of the future would be retro-innovation. Not at all.