Even geniuses aren’t perfect. Here are Apple products created under the direction of Steve Jobs that flopped:
Apple III —Introduced to much fanfare in 1980, the high-priced — at $8,000 each — successor to the uber-popular Apple II personal computer was targeted at business users.
Critics called it the worst computer ever built. Jobs had decided it didn’t need an internal fan, and, as a result, chips would overheat and detach from their boards — a problem the company suggested could be fixed by picking up the device and dropping it!
Lisa — Named after Jobs’ daughter, the business-oriented personal computer debuted in 1983 to universal scorn. Even though it was the first commercial computer withamouse and graphics, instead of lines of code, it flopped due to its $9,995 price tag—about $21,000 in today’s dollars. Businesses balked at spending that much money when PCs were far cheaper, and Lisa was quickly overshadowed by the cheaper Macintosh, launched a year later.
“Puck” mouse — The iMac computer was the first major product created after Jobs’ triumphant return to Apple in 1996, and it was a huge success following its 1998 launch despite its much-mocked tiny, round mouse. The hated mouse disappeared in users’ hands, it was hard to use, and had a strikingly poor design. It was a rare black eye for Apple’s design team.
The Cube — This small desktop computer was beautifully encased in a cube of clear plastic and won a bevy of design awards. But it flopped with the public because it lackedamonitor and carried a high price tag—$1,799 in 2000 dollars, or about $2,300 today. It proved that people aren’t willing to pay big bucks for design alone.
Newton MessagePad — The early personal digital assistant debuted in 1993 at a cost of up to $1,200 and never caught on with buyers. The device had handwriting-recognition software that was wildly unreliable. Its clunky size — 8 inches tall and nearly 5 inches wide—was described as “palm-sized” by the company, prompting an online tech analyst to joke, “Yes, if you’re Yao Ming,” the 7-foot-6 former NBA star.