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Top 10 Apple Flops
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."
Why the heck isn't the Apple /// in there? They made it for three whole years, less than 100,000 units (something around 75,000 I believe?).
///'s reputation was ruined almost right after it was out of the gate, despite the advanced SOS. Production stopped in '83 I believe, and it's a damn good thing Apple had the Mac coming out right afterwards.
The first models were plagued by quality control problems - a clock chip from National Semiconductor that wouldn't work, inadequate ventilation resulting in the unseating of chips (which was rectified by lifting the computer a few inches and dropping it), too-short keyboard cables, and very little software.
The Apple
The coolest voice ever.
Article text, karma whore free:
"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."
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Apple and its compatriots have been highly innovative. These companies have proven that even if their ideas are well implemented, they cannot always promote them correctly. Other times, a good idea is implemented poorly, and despite their best marketing effort, the product fails. I have compiled 10 of the most notable products released by Apple or its comrades that have failed.
Apple Pippin
Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin should have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit only 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS and with a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs at that time. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wished to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor. Instead, they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full-blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as "Live Objects".
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated Video Conferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commercial products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicked the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had failed to attract third party developers. Mac OS 8 was the last release from Apple to include OpenDoc, and it was quietly killed at the hands of Gil Amelio.
Mac TV
Apple was the first major personal computer manufacturer to release a machine with a bundled TV tun
http://www.mynewoffice.com/pcmuseum/AppleIII_336.j pg
You have to admit that it is cool looking. Weird-ass keyboard (why make a numerical keyboard with just subtraction?!), but cool looking.
Posted anonymously to avoid whoring karma!!
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Top 10 Apple Flops
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.
[Image] Apple and its compatriots have been highly innovative. These companies have proven that even if their ideas are well implemented, they cannot always promote them correctly. Other times, a good idea is implemented poorly, and despite their best marketing effort, the product fails. I have compiled 10 of the most notable products released by Apple or its comrades that have failed.
Apple Pippin
[Image] Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin should have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit only 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS and with a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs at that time. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
[Image] The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wished to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor. Instead, they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full-blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as Live Objects.
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated Video Conferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commercial products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicked the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had
http://mlagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=N ews&file=article&sid=137&mode=thread&order=0&thold =0
This one is probably the original that osviews.com is referencing.
creation science book
Actually, if you RTFA, the author appears to be an Apple fan; I quote:
"Thomas Hormby is a high school student in Nashville, Tennessee. He maintains two Mac history websites, http://www.mlagazine.com and http://www.macreate.net."
So, it's not so much Apple bashing (although the editorial by-line does make it appear that way) as much as it is a look at some of the ideas that flopped: some were very good ideas not well implemented, others were just ahead of their time, and some were jsut bad ideas (e.g. Word 6.0 for Mac from Microsoft). Oh yeah, not every comment in there is against Apple - some of them are about Apple-related products.
Macreate.net /.'d fast, but it's here as well!
This may be
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Actually, the Apple /// was a fairly unsuccessful small business computer system. Remarkably so, although by rights it should have been a runaway success as it addressed all the business-related issues that had been plaguing the Apple ][ series from the beginning. Improved keyboard, cool enclosure, decent display, faster CPU .. pretty slick actually. Honestly, the Apple /// should have eclipsed the IBM PC ... it was there first, had the applications, an actual Business BASIC and backwards compatibility with the older Apple ][ software. What killed it was the initial (and well-deserved) bad rap it got for being unreliable (as well as pricey.) At the time (1980) I was working as a service tech for a local computer store, and the early units I serviced were flaky as hell. Hardly suitable for a home machine much less a business system. Furthermore, initial production runs had a defective real-time clock (great idea, Apple was again ahead of its time) chip. It wasn't until the IBM AT came out that IBM had a built-in hardware RTC. Anyway, Apple did eventually fix the problems with the Apple ///+, but by then it was too late ... it was considered a flop. A few months later the original IBM PC was released (I was sent to IBM sales/service school in Boca Raton the week before the official unveiling) and that sounded the death knell for the Apple ///.
But, yeah. SOS was kinda weird.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I read a link to the story yesterday off of OSNews, and it was damn slow even then. It wasn't so much critical of apple as it was pointing out alot of cool things that never came to fruition, Copland having a huge emphasis. I didn't take it so much as flops as I did "here's a list of cool little known items".
College Humor at it's best
From the article:
The new manager decided to just use WinWord 2.0's code-base on the Mac.
Not quite correct. I worked there around that time.
The decision was to use the same source code to build both Windows and Mac versions.
With Pyramid, the goal was to make a word processor that would be carefully designed: back end universal, front end specific to each supported OS (which would be Windows, MacOS, and possibly OS/2 PM). When Pyramid didn't work out as well as they hoped, they decided to take the Windows source code and build it for MacOS.
Rather than running wild with #ifdef statements and trying to make a native Mac interface, they used a compatibility library. IIRC this was called WLM (Windows Layer for Macintosh). It was not unlike the "winelib" library.
Because both Windows Word and Mac Word were compiled from the same source code, the two products became fully compatible. This was a major leap in features for the Mac Word product. Previous versions of Mac Word had been much smaller and faster, but they were also missing features compared to Windows Word, which meant that file compatibility was not 100%. (You can't import a file, and then export that file with edits, if your word processor does not support all the features that file uses!)
Business users were much happier with Mac Word 6 because of the file compatibility. Home users, students, and magazine reporters tended to be annoyed about the slower speed of Word 6 compared to the older versions. There was a bug that made the "word count" feature particularly slow, and Microsoft caught a lot of heat from the press because magazine reporters tend to care a lot about word counts.
As for it being a top 10 flop, I disagree. I don't think you can reasonably call it a failure. From Mac Word 6 onward, every version of Word for the Mac has had good feature compatibility with Windows Word, and of course Macs got faster and got more RAM. And Microsoft wasn't making enough money on the Mac version to continue to support a complete extra development team with its own code base.
And by the way, the Mac developers I knew at Microsoft all really loved the Mac and wanted to make good software for it. You can accuse Microsoft of not caring about the Mac, or grudgingly writing code for it, but it's not true.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Now, his decision to unceremoniously drop the Apple // series and the millions of loyal Apple // users may be be an example of Jobs' insight.
... from 1977 until 1993... almost 9 years after the Mac's release! And well after Jobs was out of Apple.
Wow, you need help with reality.
The Apple II had an incredible run
Now I'm a pretty huge Apple II fan ("call -151" and "PR#6" always come to mind...) but I completely understand why Apple gave up the Apple II after so many years.
It was a great machine. But it was an evaporating market after 1985, and the fact that Apple kept it up until 1993 is nothing short of incredible.
And remember: By 1990 all of the other non-Intel PC architectures had failed. C64, Amiga, TRS-80, Rainbow, anything CP/M, AT&T, Atari, and all the others were dead. The fact that Apple kept it going until '93 is nothing short of amazing.
Hell, even the old Mac LC came with an Apple II compatability card.
PDP-10 rules!
I wouldn't say Mac gaming is non-existent. If you are not dying to play the latest titles you can find many decent games on Macs, but they are pricy.
Mac game typically come out one year after their PC equivalent, cost the same as the PC version when it was first shipped, and don't come down in price very fast.
It's almost impossible to find games for Macs on shelves even at Apple stores (they usually have a few token ones). You need to buy them online.
However a few publishers do have Mac-PC games in the same box like for the Myst series.
As for Linux the situation is not very good. Of recent memory only the Neverwinter and the ID games series have been good on Linux. The rest must be run through Cedega/WineX, and this is *hard*.
Neither Linux or Mac games are a patch on the Windows scene, and that one is being overtaken by consoles at the moment.
ha.. I also have an old 8100 that's loaded with mkLinux, it's sitting about 3 feet from my desk right now, haven't booted it up in years.
I think what really killed A/UX was MAE, the Mac Application Environment for Unix, which was how you got Mac apps running on A/UX. I think I recall it ran on other platforms like SUN. There was a lot of pressure to release it on more platforms, which Apple definitely did NOT want to do. The last thing Apple ever wanted was to see a Mac GUI running on Intel hardware, and that's where they saw it going.
Now if you want a REALLY obscure Apple Unix, here's one: SCO Xenix for Lisa. I actually configured and delivered one to a client. He had a custom written accounting package, he got a serial I/O board and hung 4 dumb terminals off the Lisa, and had 5 working terminals (including the Lisa) to do data entry. I just couldn't believe it when I saw the Lisa boot up to a command line and run Unix. After seeing the Lisa's distinctive white screen with black type for so long, seeing white text on a dark Lisa screen was like staring into a black hole.
That was pretty much Moofie's point - all of the things you mentioned were done after Jobs was fired, and before he was re-hired.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
The @world Pippin. Basically a PPC 603 Mac, custom designed as a videogame console with net capabilities. in conjunction with Bandai. Barely sold enough in Japan, barely registered a blip in America. Considering it was released in 1995 and surpassed the Playstation in computing and graphical capabilities, it was definately ahead of its time, but miles behind decent marketing.
n /a pple_bandai_pippin.html
http://assembler.roarvgm.com/Apple_Bandai_pippi
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
It's also hard to sell a machine to businesses when part of standard maintenance on it was to lift it two inches from the desk and drop it--especially when that suggestion came from the manufacturor (it caused the RAM chips to reseat).
hawk
Apple Pippin
Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin sould have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit on 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS. With a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizeable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wishes to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor, instead they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as "Live Objects".
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated VideoConferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commerical products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicced the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had failed to attract third party developers. Mac OS 8 was the last release from Apple to include OpenDoc, and it was quietly killed at the hands of Gil Amelio.
Mac TV
Apple was the first major personal computer manufacturer to release a machine with a bundled TV tuner to the public. The Macintosh TV was Apple's first effort in merging the home theater and personal computer. The machine was also one of the only two black Macs ever made (the second being a special edition 5400 sold only in Europe)..
The Macintosh TV was first envisioned as a tenth anniversary Mac, but it was eventually cancelled. After the unexpected success of the Color Classic, John Sculley requested that a machine comparable to the Color Classic be made with a CD ROM drive and a 14" Trinitron CRT. The logic card was a slightly modified IIvx, Apple's midrange 68030 machine. The Macintosh TV was released on October 23, 1993, shortly after being resurrected.
The new machine was designed to be low cost and have a small footprint. Its most notable features were its TV tuner card and remote control. The TV tuner code had RCA and coaxial inputs, allowing us