Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Apple, the world's largest company by market capitalization, has previously released so many money-losing goods?

When we think of Apple, we are sure to think of iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook and other technology products that have changed the way we live.

But even the most valuable companies in the world have moments of Waterloo due to marketing mistakes and quality problems.

In history, Apple has not always made as much money as it is today. The failure of some early products may directly bankrupt most other technology companies.

Here, let's review six of Apple's most failed products.

Apple III: "hot" Apple III is Apple's first attempt to make a powerful commercial computer. After two years of research and development, it was released in 1980.

While the Apple II, released in 1977, was well received by small businesses, Apple realized that IBM was developing personal computers specifically for business users. This made the Apple alarm go off.

In order to protect market share, Apple attaches great importance to Apple III, requiring it to be equipped with many functions to meet the different needs of users.

To that end, Apple has arranged for a committee of engineers to take charge of the project. This is the first Apple computer that was not designed by series designer Steve Wozniak (Steve Wozniak).

However, everyone has their own ideas about what functions Apple III should have, and the finished product includes all ideas. The project was supposed to be completed within 10 months, but it took two years.

In November 1980, Apple III was finally launched, starting at $3495. Apple claims that the Apple III has twice as much performance and memory as the Apple II.

It was the first Apple computer to have a built-in floppy drive and ran a new operating system called Apple SOS with an advanced memory management system and hierarchical file system.

Unfortunately, none of these innovations can save Apple III from its flawed underlying design. Because of a serious overheating problem, Apple was forced to recall its first batch of 14000 machines.

Part of the reason for overheating is Jobs' insistence on not installing fans in the chassis (the root of all evil has been found). What is even more exaggerated is that the body expands when heated, causing the chip to pop up frequently. Apple even told customers to lift the overheated machine to cool it and then put it down.

Apple finally released a revised model called Apple III Plus in 1983, which solved a wide range of problems. But three generations of damage to the reputation of the Apple series of computers has been done.

Jobs later said that the company had lost "unlimited and incalculable" money on Apple III, and that the poor response had led tens of thousands of American companies to buy IBM computers.

Apple Lisa: Lisa, an epoch-making product in the junkyard, was released in 1983 and is an acronym for Native Integrated Software Architecture (Local Integrated Software Architecture). This product is named after his daughter.

Before Lisa, computers relied on text interfaces and keyboard input, and the Lisa was the first personal computer with a graphical UI and mouse, inspired by Jobs' visit to the Xerox Parc research lab.

Although the computer is of great significance, its high price has dissuaded a large number of interested users. The Lisa sells for about $10, 000 (about $30, 000, or 200000 yuan, by today's standards), and everyone but the wealthiest families can't feel the charm of this epoch-making product at all.

The mistake of pricing directly leads to the failure of Lisa. Lisa was terminated in 1986 and the rest was buried at a landfill in Utah.

In retrospect, Jobs felt that Apple had lost its way. "first of all, it's too expensive, it costs $10,000," he said in an interview with Playboy in 1985. "We became one of the top 500 companies in the world and tried to sell our products to big companies. However, our operation is based on selling to ordinary people. "

Apple Newton: ridiculed by the world's first PDA in May 1992, Apple CEO John Sculley announced the new product Newton MessagePad to an enthusiastic audience at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). He calls this stylish black handheld device the PDA, which is about the size of a magnetic tape.

'The Newton is a whole new category of devices,'he said. It comes with a stylus that can be used to take notes, store contacts and manage calendars. At present, these are standard features of modern smartphones, but in 1993, the emergence of Newton was subversive.

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), also known as PDA, is an advanced product before smart phones. Although at that time, the leaders of PDA were BlackBerry, PPC and other products, it was Apple that first put forward the concept of PDA and produced the finished product.

However, Apple claims that the real killer of the Newton is handwriting recognition. Or at least that was Apple's original plan, because the feature barely worked.

Fourteen months later, Apple launched its first Newton MessagePad for $900, but by that time, other companies had brought their own PDA to market, and Newton still had big problems translating handwritten notes into text.

Among the criticism, Apple Newton became the target of ridicule-the comic book "Doonesbury" spent a whole week satirizing its handwriting recognition problem; the Simpsons even mocked the device's poor performance.

Apple strives to make subsequent versions of Newton a success, and handwriting recognition has improved significantly with the release of Newton OS 2.0 in March 1996. But it's too late.

Newton has gone through eight iterations, and Apple has spent $100 million on its development, and only an estimated 200000 have been sold. But this is not all a waste, the design concept behind PDA has become the starting point of iPhone.

Pippin: in 1996, Apple teamed up with Bandai to launch the home multimedia system Pippin in Japan and the United States.

The system uses PippinOS, an operating system compatible with Mac OS 7.5x, as a game host for online games, learning and entertainment. Unlike similar products, the Pippin only has CD, does not have a hard drive, and needs to be connected to the TV.

On the face of it, Pippin is like this, with some unique features that all other console competitors lack.

The unique structure of Pippin stems from Apple's commercial positioning of its products. At that time, personal computers were not yet popular, and Apple hoped to change the market through this multimedia device.

However, due to the lack of appropriate software support, and the market was already dominated by Nintendo N64, Sega and PS gaming devices, Pippin has been lacklustre since its inception.

Apple had hoped to ship 500000 consoles a year, but only about 42000 of them were sold in the short life of the device.

The dismal sales caused Apple and Bandai of Joint Development to lose more than 6.5 billion yen, and even the subsidiary responsible for this matter was disbanded. This became the black history of Apple at that time.

20th Anniversary Macintosh: in March 1997, Apple released the 20th Anniversary Macintosh (TAM) to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the company. Even by today's standards, this is Apple's most futuristic product.

The slim upright "all-in-one" design includes a number of novel features, including a built-in 12.1in LCD flat panel display, vertically mounted CD-ROM and floppy disk drives, and an integrated TV / FM tuner.

Not only that, the TAM is also equipped with a customized Bose sound system, and the 20th anniversary edition, with its unique appearance and luxurious configuration, has become one of Apple's masterpieces of the future and perfect industrial design.

Apple's marketing department positioned the TAM as a high-end product, and after the buyer placed an order, a waiter in a tuxedo drove a limousine and delivered it to the buyer. The price is that the buyer has to pay $7500.

Because there are so few customers with a lot of money, Apple cut the price of the TAM to $2000 in the final weeks of listing, but that will only infuriate those who have already paid the full price. To quell their anger, Apple was forced to repay users who bought it at full price with the new PowerBook.

Apple has produced a total of 12000 TAM, many of which have never been sold. The system lasted only 12 months in Apple's product lineup and was discontinued a year later in March 1998. Soon after, Apple launched the iMac G3 with a similar size, but with a larger screen and a price of just $1299.

Power Mac G4 Cube: elegant but expensive Power Mac G4 Cube was unveiled on July 19, 2000, one of the most personalized works of Apple industrial design. The fanless machine was less than 1/4 of the size of most PC at the time, representing a whole new class of computers.

The Cube features a powerful G4 PowerPC processor, a stand-alone Nvidia video card, an AirPort card for Wi-Fi and a DVD burner, all neatly packaged in an elegant eight-inch cube and suspended in a transparent acrylic box.

Jobs called it "the coolest computer ever," and at first impressions, it was hard to disagree.

But Cube was doomed almost from the start. Its upgradeability is limited: the handle at the bottom of the computer allows the user to pull the interior out of the shell, with three RAM slots and space inserted into the AirPort card, but without the PCI slot, the video player card is also shrunk to accommodate tight space.

At the same time, even by Apple's standards, it is too expensive. The new version costs $1799, which is $1799 higher than the upgradable Power Mac G4.

In nearly a year, Apple sold less than 150000 units. On July 3, 2001, Apple announced an indefinite suspension of Cube production.

Cook, the current Apple CEO, later described the Cube as "an astonishing failure".

Although Apple has repeatedly stepped on the price, it is a pity that many genius ideas are gradually forgotten because they were born at the wrong time. It's a pity that business failed, but it was these constant trial and error that made Apple ushered in iPhone, iMac and the title of No. 1 market capitalization.

In recent years, Apple's products have been complained of "toothpaste updates". Under Cook's leadership, Apple has developed more steadily and cut more accurately, but people's expectations have also been falling, as low as a smart island to make people call it awesome.

The world's eyes are focused on Apple's VR. Will it become a legendary product like iPhone and iPad, or will it be material for inventory in the next decade? Time will give us the answer.

Reference:

Https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/14/apples-biggest-hardware-flops/

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Xin Zhiyuan (ID:AI_era)

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