Throughout Apple’s more than 40 years in business, and after going through a period where it almost closed its doors without Bill Gates (yes, Bill Gates), the company founded by Steve Jobs and whose legacy is currently in the hands of Tim Cook, has launched a large number of products on the market, products which have not all had the same market acceptance.
If you want to know what the biggest failures of the market have been, failures which have rarely been officially recognized by Apple and which we show you below.
Apple failures of the last 10 years
To innovate in any field, failure is something intrinsically associated. Apple is a good example, but not the only one, of companies that, when it comes to innovation, have made some pretty striking mistakes.
Air power
Apple announced the AirPower Charging Base in 2017, a charging base that allowed you to charge the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods together without having to place the device in a specific way. After a lot of rumors and speculation about the alleged problems Apple was having with this product, two years later it announced that abandoned the project.
Gold Apple Watch
The first generation of the Apple Watch was available in a version manufactured in 18 carat gold
MacBook butterfly keyboard
With the launch of the MacBook Pro range in 2016, Apple wanted to reinvent how the keyboard works, leaving aside the classic and functional scissor design to adopt a butterfly design. This design started to have problems early on and Apple kept it in its laptop line until it threw in the towel and returned to the market. scissor mechanism.
Touch bar
The problem with the key mechanism of the MacBook Pro released in 2016 was not the only one to bother regular Apple customers. This model debuted the TouchBar, an OLED touchscreen that replaced the row of function keys and eliminated the Escape key. In addition to the problem of eliminating the Escape key, the developers did not know or did not want to bet on itso it was a very nice OLED screen above the keyboard which served no purpose.
Magic Mouse 2
The second generation of Apple’s Magic Mouse hit the market with the loading port located at the bottom of the mouse which prevents us from continuing to use it while we are charging it. Many news and media outlets have criticized it, however, it seems that Apple does not quite understand the reason for these criticisms and continues to sell it in the market.
Iphone 6
The iPhone 6 was Apple’s first step in adopting larger screens on the iPhone, but this came with a very serious problem since this It folded quite easily.. In subsequent generations of iPhone, Apple worked to strengthen the aluminum structure to avoid this problem.
Siri Remote
With the launch of the Apple TV 4, the Cupertino-based company has completely revamped the control of this device and named it Siri Remote. This commandment was, from the first day, a headache for users, in particular the touch screen located at the top and which replaced the traditional roulette and whose operation was not very intuitive. The next generation of Apple TV 4, Apple TV 4K, has completely revamped its design to make it, this time, a control unit superior to all others.
Mac Pro
The Mac Pro is one of the products that Apple has openly admitted to designing poorly. The Mac Pro is Apple’s Mac intended for a professional audience who have very high demands and who require modularity, something that is not found in this model known as the Trash Can due to its shape. In 2019, it abandoned this design in favor of the traditional tower design.
Other Apple failures
Since its inception, Apple has released a large number of products to the market and not all of them have been as successful as the company hoped.
- Pippin apple. With this curious name we find the video game console that Apple launched on the market in 1996 and stopped selling in 2017 to compete with the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
- Apple Quick Take. Just as Apple unsuccessfully pivoted to video game consoles, it was unsuccessful with the Apple QuickTape, a digital camera introduced in 1994 and which left the market in 1997.
- Power Mac G4 Cube. The success of Apple’s Powerbook G4 with an included monitor (like the current iMac line) prompted the company to launch a tower with a very similar design, but without a monitor, but the lack of power (since it doesn’t had no fan to help its cooling) and its high price made Apple change its mind, which discontinued it a year after its launch.
- Apple hockey puck. Until Apple introduced the Hockey Puck mouse with a round shape similar to hockey pucks, no one had released a round mouse and it was obviously for a simple ergonomic reason.
- NewtonPDA. Apple also had its PDA with the Newton PDA, a product that was launched on the market when Steve Jobs was expelled from the company he founded, and which offered the same functions as any other PDA on the market for much less money and without offering the many problems posed by this device capable of recognizing freehand writing using a pen.
- Macintosh Laptop. This was Apple’s first attempt to enter the wearable segment. This model was 12 cm thick, very heavy, difficult to carry and could be used to perform simple tasks, not to mention its high price: 7-300 dollars in 1989. Battery life and screen problems did not contribute to your success either.
- Bluetooth headphones. Apple’s first commitment to wireless headphones wasn’t AirPods. In 2007, it launched Bluetooth headphones as well as the first iPhone model, which it stopped selling in 2009 due to low sales.
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