Forbes’ 10 Apple Flops

Lonnie Lazar ()

Possibly in a fit of friendly rivalry with its competitor Fortune magazine, atop whose list of the 50 Most Admired Companies in the world Apple sits for 2008 at #1, Forbes magazine featured its list of the 10 biggest Apple failures this week, a gallery of which we reproduce for you below.

There are at least a couple of items here that grabbed a few hearts, but what do you think? Are these all Apple strikeouts? Let us know in comments.

Lisa Macintosh Portable Newton
Quicktake Taligent Apple TV
Mac TV Pippin Power Mac G4 Cube
The Rokr

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Apple, Hardware, Macintosh, Opinions |

  • Barry

    I’ve still got a Cube in service. It’s actually a pretty nice little system and in recording studio the lack of cooling fans is a definite plus.

    Boy, I’d forgotten completely about the Pippin.

  • Albert

    I don’t know if I’d put AppleTV in there — it’s an idea now replicated by many other companies, ie. Belkin.

    And what the hell is Pippin?

  • Marc M

    Most, if not all, of the listed Apple failures were a result of Apple’s ideas being too far ahead of their time in terms of technology or underlying infrastructure.

    One case in point is the Newton. It started shipping in 1993; how long until the ‘Palm’ became mainstream? Even today it could, at a stretch I admit, be compared to a Kindle, had the Newton been developed further. But it’s timing was poor. Even the iPod took a while to catch on and look at it, and its offshoots, now.

  • http://www.eleganttechnology.co.uk Steve

    I don’t think a current product like Apple TV can be classed as a failure.

    All of the others may have been commercial failures but I can see a line from every one to today’s product line-up.

    In the past I also owned a few.

  • Luke Docksteader

    What’s up with the Rokr?… And why is it made by Motorola…?… How was Apple involved in this?

  • Bill Coleman

    I suppose it depends on how you define “flop”

    - The Lisa was not a commercial success, but it certainly paved the way for the Macintosh. In the earliest days of the Mac, you had to have a Lisa in order to program your Mac.

    - The Macintosh Portable was a lightweight compared to the 40 lb Compaq or IBM portables of the day. Plus, it had an 8 hour (!!!) battery life. It was the lead-acid battery that contributed the majority of the weight. I still have (not so) fond memories of lugging a Macintosh Portable through the Atlanta and Heathrow airports. My nickname for it was the “bowling ball” since it weighed about as much.

    - Taligent was hardly an Apple flop. By the time it folded, Apple was no longer an active participant.

    - Newton spawned a whole new market. It gave birth to Palm, which has probably run its course. If the MP 2000 was the first Newton, it would more likely have been a success.

    - Quicktake wasn’t really a flop either. By today’s standards, it was really limited, of course, but so where digital cameras of the day. Canon sold a lot of QV-10 and 11s, which are no more capable than the Quicktake.

    - Mac TV – OK, that’s one.

    - Pippin – does it count as a flop if it never sold? I don’t think so.

    - Rokr – this was Motorola’s flop.

    - G4 Cube – Hmm. The Cube certainly had problems, but it was reasonably popular. Likely the grandfather of the Mac mini and Apple TV.

    - Apple TV – flop? Too early to tell. It’s only a hobby after all.

    I mean, if they want to talk about flops — how about PowerTalk?

  • http://cultofmac.com Lonnie Lazar

    @Albert – From the Forbe’s piece: “Pippin was a joint project with toymaker Bandai… Released in 1995 to Japan, it was designed to replace the PC as much as older game consoles… But a 14.4 kilobyte-per-second modem, and its $599 price, compared to Nintendo’s $199 N64, didn’t help.”

    As to the Rokr, Forbe’s says “The Motorola Rokr was not Apple’s first attempt at an iPod phone … But Apple did choose to license its iTunes software for use on the phone and partnered with Motorola to market the converged device in September 2005. The final product, which limits the amount of songs the phone can store at an arbitrary 100, was a disappointment–even if it did foretell the market-convulsing iPhone.”

  • Peter Lin

    Re: AppleTV. I’m probably the only person in the world but I quite like the AppleTV. Does what I need, works well. I probably use it more than TV or DVD player. My only worry is the size of the drive. Even now I only have 33G free. There needs to be an option to add an external drive; 144G isn’t enough.

  • Jeff

    Boy, the AppleTV being there is nothing more than proof that “Top 9″ lists don’t sell.

    Gotta pad it out to 10, no matter what!

  • Bruce Fox

    Hey Folks,
    This litany of “flops” shows a company that is consistently out front with new concepts. There’s ten pictures of a history of pushing computing to higher levels of portability and ease of use. If you are not failing once in a while you aren’t pushing hard enough. Yeah Apple! Keep pushing.
    Regards,
    Fox sends.

  • Cameron

    How can they not mention the Apple /// ?

  • http://www.chrismaxcer.com Chris Maxcer

    The Apple TV is a kick-ass product. It’s in use every day at my house. I’m considering buying a second one. I use it for movies, TV shows, podcasts, more movies, music, and photo slideshows. And family and friends love the photo slideshows . . . kind of handy to let play when football isn’t on. A flop? The only flop is the marketing effort behind it. I would be interested to see customer satisfaction levels for the Apple TV . . . I’m betting they’d be pretty high.

    Of course, I’d like to see a bigger, better Apple TV — the same Apple TV application installable on a Mac mini, for example, rather than the more limited Front Row application. Still, the Apple TV rocks. If it died today, I’d buy another one. Even in this economy.

  • Alberto Cuadra

    I’m also quite surprised about the inclusion of Apple TV in the list. My family have been using it for more than a year and we simply cannot live without it.

  • mark reinhoudt

    The Apple cube has never had a real chance. Before you knew it they modified the machine and called the MacMini.

    For me the Cube is a real piece of art that is able to make life a lot easier. It is still going strong here and has a special place in my otherwise oh so minimalistic lounge.

  • Kevin Harrington

    I love my 2 Apple TV’s they are Great!!!!! It is not a flop!!!

  • Feri

    I can’t live in living room without my Apple TV. It’s our own TV station now.

  • http://www.jmichaelt.org jmt

    Count me among the small (?) number of satisfied Apple TV owners. Before the iTunes streaming capability, it was usable, but now it’s the primary interface to my digital media collection. The apple TV has allowed me to reclaim shelf space that used to be dedicated to DVD’s. Now, if I could only find a way to bring in my old Laser Discs….