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."

Comments

Microsoft Word 6?

[eweu]

This is a fairly good list of notable Apple flubs, but why include Microsoft Word 6? It sure was a dog, but that wasn't Apple's fault.

In it's place, I'd like to nominate the Apple ///. It was such a failure that perhaps the list's originator doesn't even know about it.

Flops at Apple are predictable

[Dancin_Santa]

Apple has always had significant trouble when Steve Jobs is not at the helm. Gil Amelio and his drive to gain business credibility really put a huge pain on the company.

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.

Re:Apple ///, anyone?

[mveloso]

What's amazing to me is the Apple ][ series lifespan was from 1977 to 1993. Unbelievable! That's 16 years from the original Apple ][ to the last gs EOL.

My Top...err, Bottom Ten List.

[ktakki]

The osviews.com site is a smoking hole in the ground, so I have no idea what Thomas Hormby's list looks like. But I have my own list. It's been twenty years since I bought my first Mac (512K), and I'm probably going to order a Mac Mini this week; in between I've owned over a dozen different models. I love Apple, but I'd be the first to admit that they haven't been without problems over the years. So, here's my list of fuckups that came out of 1 Infinte Loop, Cupertino, CA:

1. 128K in the original Mac - Even in a world where an operating system, a couple of applications, and all of your documents could fit on a 400K floppy, 128KB of RAM was still not enough. Fortunately, the Mac shipped with 512KB less than a year after its introduction.
2. Service problems in the early '90s - Quality problems, particularly with LaserWriters, were endemic for a while, and Apple's support during this period was less than stellar. It took years before Apple even began to shake off its reputation for poor customer service.
3. LCII - I didn't really want to single out one model, but the LCII was the only Mac I absolutely hated. It barely had enough power to run the Finder.
4. System 7.6 - A System that stayed around long past its sell-by date. All the dithering about Copeland as a potential replacement didn't help things much, and its replacement (System 8) was little more than a stop-gap measure (like Windows ME).
5. Holding on to ADB/NuBus too long - I never really saw what advantage ADB had over the PS/2 mouse/keyboard interface other than vendor lock-in (I think only one other peripheral - a modem - used this interface). NuBus did have advantages over ISA, but the move to PCI could have happened a year or two earlier.
6. Some outrageous prices during the '90s - This was where the Mac got its "overpriced" reputation. I recall that the list price for a Quadra 950 was close to $10,000. It wasn't always like this: I bought my first Mac 512K because it was nearly $1,000 less than the equivalent PC/XT clone (and the peripheral I needed, a MIDI interface, was less than $100, less than half what an MPU-401 for a PC cost).
7. Begun the Clone Wars Have. - Now you see 'em, now you don't. The conventional wisdom was that Apple wanted the clonemakers to stake out the low end of the market, leaving the high-margin high end market to Apple. But Radius and Power Computing had other ideas.
8. John Scully - 'nuff said.
9. Mutant Macs (Cube, 20th Anniversary Mac, Color Classic, Portable) - Not everything that emerges from 1 Infinite Loop is to die for. Well, some are to die for (Cube) but stink up the marketplace. I think every manufacturer is allowed to make an Edsel now and again.
10. Copeland - All that work for what?

What, you were expecting one button mouse to be here?

k.