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Apple hits and misses Apple is known for having many successful product launches. But it has had some unsuccessful ones too.
Miss: The Power Mac G4 Cube
The Power Mac G4 Cube was a diminutive computer that required a separate monitor, unlike its iMac cousin. In 2000, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs introduced the G4 Cube as “simply the coolest computer ever.” Well, apparently it wasn’t. Less than a year later, Apple issued a news release announcing that it was putting the 8-inch cube on ice, because of weak sales.
Rick Maiman
/
Bloomberg News
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Hit: The iMac G3
In 1998, Apple made a radical move in the world of personal computers when it removed the floppy disk drive with the iMac G3. The iMac 3 helped Apple have its first profitable year since 1995.
Chiaki Tsukumo
/
AP
Hit: OS X
In May 2000, Jobs introduced the Mac OS X during the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. The Apple CEO announced at the conference that Apple would delay shipping by several months its most ambitious upgrade ever to its Macintosh operating system to give developers time to create accompanying software. The operating system has come with every Mac since its release and falls right behind Windows as the most-used operating system, according to a W3Counter report.
Paul Sakuma
/
AP
Hit: The iPhone
The iPhone, released in 2007, was a game-changer in the mobile world. The smartphone was the first mobile device to use multi-touch screen. Sales of the iPhone have steadily increased over the years. In September 2012, Apple announced that its newest phone, the iPhone 5, had broken sales records previously held by the iPhone 4S.
Eric Risberg
/
AP
Hit: The iPod
Apple’s digital music player changed the way people listened to music. Consumers ditched the clunky portable CD player for the audio device that, as Steve Jobs said, fits your entire music library in your pocket.The iPod has helped Apple reach record profits over the years. It continues being the best-selling portable audio device, holding more than 70 percent of the market share, according to reports.
Paul Sakuma
/
AP
Miss: The Apple Lisa
The first Apple Lisa was released in 1983. The computer wasn’t received well: The nearly $10,000 price tag was seen as too high. Plus, the system ran slowly. A year later, the computer was discontinued and replaced with the Lisa II (pictured), which also suffered a short shelf life. Apple ended up dumping unsold Lisas in a Utah landfill, according to reports.
Noah Berger
/
Bloomberg News
Miss: Maps app
Shown is a screenshot of the Brooklyn Bridge from Apple's Maps app when it was launched in September 2012. When the navigation app hit users' phones, Apple received a lot of complaints about how the app wasn’t up to snuff. Problems ranging from mislabeled plots of land to warped infrastructures frustrated users so much that Apple chief executive Tim Cook had to post a public apology, a rare, humbling moment for the tech titan.
Hit: The App Store
Launched in 2008, the App Store topped 40 billion downloads in January 2013. Almost half of that number was achieved in 2012 alone, Apple says.
Peter MacDiarmid
/
Getty Images
Miss: The MessagePad
There was a point in the 1990s when PDAs were considered cool, but the MessagePad didn’t seem to be. The MessagePad, which was commonly referred to as the Newton, the name of its operating system, was launched in 1993 and was one of the earliest PDAs. Consumers had a hard time coming to grips with the device. It was clunky and had a handwriting recognition feature that was so bad it was even mocked in a “Simpsons” episode.
Richard Drew
/
AP
Miss: MobileMe
Even Steve Jobs considered the cloud storage system MobileMe a miss after its 2008 launch. According to a Fortune magazine profile, Jobs chastised his MobileMe team members for “tarnish[ing] Apple’s reputation” and said they “should hate each other for having let each other down” after the system received harsh reviews. MobileMe had such a rough start with crashing servers and other problems that Apple apologized and gave its users 30-day subscriptions free of charge.
Hit: The iPad
For years, companies tried to fill that middle ground between the cellphone and the computer. Many had failed. Then Apple came along with the iPad. Despite jokes over its name and comparisons to it being an oversized iPod Touch, Apple sold 1 million iPads in less than a month after its release, which was twice the initial sales rate of the iPhone. While many rival tablet computers have cropped up, the iPad continues to dominate the market.
Kevork Djansezian
/
Getty Images
Hit or miss?: Apple TV
An Apple TV converter is shown in this 2010 file photo. The device, which displays streams movies and TV shows via the Internet and allows access to music and photos stored on Mac-users computers and linked through Apple’s iCloud service, has long been considered a "hobby" device by the company. But many expect that television will be Apple's next big hit.
Mark Lennihan
/
AP
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Section:/business/economy
![Even Steve Jobs considered the cloud storage system MobileMe a miss after its 2008 launch. According to a Fortune magazine profile, Jobs chastised his MobileMe team members for “tarnish[ing] Apple’s reputation” and said they “should hate each other for having let each other down” after the system received harsh reviews. MobileMe had such a rough start with crashing servers and other problems that Apple apologized and gave its users 30-day subscriptions free of charge.](/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/06/02/National-Economy/Images/mobileme.jpg)
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