Newton, Power Mac Cube, iMac G4 "Sunflower", and solid gold first-gen Apple Watch come to mind as Apple hardware products that failed to live up to the hype.
On the software side there are more misses, but also the stakes are lower.
It's a great track record for thirty years, of course. All the other big tech companies have graveyards full of half-assed product launches.
Except for the Apple Watch I had all these products. They were some of the best of their time and even hold up today in terms of design and usability.
Your definition of success seems extraordinarily high, if these products were failures. Maybe measured by items sold. But then each of them stands in nearly every single design museum like MoMA, history books, and were clear stepping stones to the Mac mini (cube, sunflower without display), and ipod/phone (newton). So bottom line they were a clear success to Apple’s enormous brand value.
Other than the watch, all the products you mentioned are before 2002. Anything in the past 20 years that have been huge misses in delivering up to expectation?
Also how is the 1st gen watch a failure? It sold millions immediately, and was a huge commercial success. It pretty much started a gold rush for digital watches again.
I think it's fair to say the new "Apple" (last 15 years or so), has been pretty good with exceeding expectations and breaking through barriers that other companies just couldn't.
In what sense did the iMac G4 fail to live up to the hype? That was my first Mac, I still have it. Thought it was an incredible computer for the time--the iMac + OS X 10.1 Puma was absolutely magical coming from Windows 98 on a beige Dell.
The design still looks incredible too, 20+ years later.
I will grant that the Newton failed. In the Apple hardware category, I'd also add the iPod Hi-Fi, the butterfly keyboard, and the touch bar.
That said, Apple's failures are rare and their multi-decade track record of delivering on hype is unsurpassed.
What was a failure about that? It looked good and worked well.
> solid gold first-gen Apple Watch
In what way did the gold watch fail? It was the first gen watch, the same hardware as the rest, just made of gold for rich people. It didn’t fail any more than any other color did.
The Apple Watch is not a failure by any objective measure. It’s very profitable and by far the biggest in the industry. Everything else you name was pre-iPhone.
More recently, the TouchBar and 3D Touch are both pretty massive market failures for Apple despite being engineered to perfection.
I think the killer was that in the Platforms State of the Union, they didn't show anybody wearing the thing, even while saying "and I can send it to the device and look at it there". Almost like they were embarrassed by it, or something...
pavlov|2 years ago
On the software side there are more misses, but also the stakes are lower.
It's a great track record for thirty years, of course. All the other big tech companies have graveyards full of half-assed product launches.
Jakob|2 years ago
Your definition of success seems extraordinarily high, if these products were failures. Maybe measured by items sold. But then each of them stands in nearly every single design museum like MoMA, history books, and were clear stepping stones to the Mac mini (cube, sunflower without display), and ipod/phone (newton). So bottom line they were a clear success to Apple’s enormous brand value.
intev|2 years ago
Also how is the 1st gen watch a failure? It sold millions immediately, and was a huge commercial success. It pretty much started a gold rush for digital watches again.
I think it's fair to say the new "Apple" (last 15 years or so), has been pretty good with exceeding expectations and breaking through barriers that other companies just couldn't.
thomas_ma|2 years ago
The design still looks incredible too, 20+ years later.
I will grant that the Newton failed. In the Apple hardware category, I'd also add the iPod Hi-Fi, the butterfly keyboard, and the touch bar.
That said, Apple's failures are rare and their multi-decade track record of delivering on hype is unsurpassed.
mcphage|2 years ago
What was a failure about that? It looked good and worked well.
> solid gold first-gen Apple Watch
In what way did the gold watch fail? It was the first gen watch, the same hardware as the rest, just made of gold for rich people. It didn’t fail any more than any other color did.
scarface_74|2 years ago
Jasper_|2 years ago
I think the killer was that in the Platforms State of the Union, they didn't show anybody wearing the thing, even while saying "and I can send it to the device and look at it there". Almost like they were embarrassed by it, or something...