Friday, April 1, 2016

40 Apple 40 years of failure in examples 8 – ZDNet France

No one is perfect, not even the Apple brand. In 40 years Apple has experienced periods of glory, but also years of doubts and even frank rout. These difficult times have resulted in clearly less revolutionary projects iPad / iPhone / iPod become over the years the attributes of god Apple. Small selection of writing Apple crashes.
 



To celebrate the 20th anniversary, a resounding failure
 

Difficult
  not to mention the Apple Newton. Like the TV or Macintosh
 Power Mac G4 Cube, we can put this machine amongst the top
 Apple failed attempts. Newton was a personal assistant put on the
 market in 1993 by Apple. The latter then had a pen and
 presented as a first version of Touch Pad remote
 ancestor of the iPad. The Apple Newton was perhaps the most produced
 representative of Apple difficulties in the 90 A Decade
 dark for the manufacturer sees its market share melt face
 the rise of the PC and Windows while Steve Jobs is sidelined
 (He returned in 1997). One of the first decisions of the founder of Apple
  will also end the development of this range
 personal assistants, they have not managed to find an audience
 large enough to justify further development efforts.
 



Macintosh TV: Apple TV before the hour

 Often, failures are the result of bad timing. If Apple launched its Apple TV box in 2007 the Apple brand was not his first attempt. In 1993, Apple introduced its MacintoshTV. An innovative concept of personal computer couplait traditional CRT television and Macintosh. The idea was not stupid: why have two screens when one is enough? Unfortunately, the model MacintoshTV has not really convinced: sold at $ 2000 price and with many design problems, the model is passed only 10 000 copies before Apple stops production less than ten months after its launch on 1 April 1994.
 



Apple III: Legacy of wear
 

Hard to succeed a success. Yet it was the goal gave the Apple III sold in the early 80s and thought to take over the Apple II, the most popular PC model of Apple at the time. The design of this model was an opportunity for Apple to test a design without an internal fan. Accordingly, the elapsed machinery suffered from frequent problems of internal overheating. Face dire sales, Apple offered an evolution from its original design, the Apple III Plus, supposed to solve the first draft of temperature problems. New failure: the production of this new model ceased four months after its release. A radical choice, but wise, since allowed the brand to concentrate on the Macintosh and the Apple Lisa (commercial failure certainly, but true innovation monument).
 



Power Mac G4 Cube: an ancestor of the Mac mini
 

Sold
  between 2000 and 2001, the Power Mac G4 Cube is a case study in
 Apple way of failure. This computer was designated by Johnny Ive. This
 presented in the form of a translucent cube. A neat design, but
 sold well priced. The Power Mac G4 Cube showed performance
 comparable to that of a Power Mac G4 classic, but was
  sold $ 200 more expensive. Moreover its unusual design made it
 less scalable than the Power Mac G4. Production of the cube was quickly
  arrested a year after its launch. However, one can see in this
 failed attempt a predecessor to the Mac Mini, launched by Apple 3 years
 half after the Power Mac G4 Cube. The Mac Mini, however, are in
 a range of prices markedly lower than was the Power Mac G4
 Cube.
 



The USB mouse to the iMac G3: too many kills design design
 

Apple has always stood by its commitment to bring new forms and colors in the often gray and monotonous world of computing. For iPod or iMac, this orientation has often been successful. But in the field of mouse, Apple does not spare himself some missteps. The company is yet known to have been among the first to popularize the use of these devices by offering the buyers of its Apple Lisa. But his first attempt to USB mouse, output in 1998 to equip the iMac G3, is widely regarded as a failure. Impractical, very precise, this mouse has not left a lot of good memories to its users. Even if it were available in 7 different colors …!
 



eWorld: timid attempt online portal
 

Like many, Apple was tempted by the sirens of the Internet and in 1994 unveiled a partnership with AOL portal called eWorld. The project agrégeait several services, discussion forums and messaging services. A year after its launch, there were just over 100 000 visitors, a ridiculous audience figures compared to AOL elsewhere. This lack of enthusiasm of users with a neat marketing minimally from the manufacturer, which decided to stop the charges two years after the launch of the service and sell all at AOL.
 



The strange obsession for Apple U2
 

Among the failures of Apple, U2 has a special place. During the keynote of the iPhone 6, Tim Cook announced that all smiles iTunes users will be all exclusively offer the latest album by Irish band. A beautiful shot com ‘which quickly turned into a fiasco. All Apple customers are not automatically fond of Irish rock band with Bono. Worse, iTunes users who try to delete the album from their playlist see the return systematically, taking up disk space as the latest malware. And Apple was not at his first attempt in this field: in 2006, the manufacturer had already released a U2 iPod at a price of 359 euros.
 
 

And the list goes on: one could add the Apple Lisa, the Pippin game console or the first attempts to Apple’s notebook market. And that’s not counting on future failures: the manufacturer is therefore very discreet about the numbers of its Apple Watch, and simply remember that this one is the best selling smartwatch in the world. A euphemism for not admit that the manufacturer’s efforts were not enough this time to take off the market for connected watches?

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