APPLE is best remembered for its groundbreaking successes in personal tech but had to dump several failing ideas on the road to the iPhone.
Did you own any of these massive Apple flops?
Apple III
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The Apple III computer was the brand’s first big miss and came at a time when the company was still developing its identity.
Steve Jobs demanded engineers subtract the cooling fan, which made the computer susceptible to overheating.
CNBC reported that Apple would recall and replace 14,000 Apple III computers.
Jobs famously said Apple lost “infinite, incalculable amounts of money” in an often-referenced interview with Playboy in 1985.
Newton MessagePad
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While regarded as a flop by today’s standards, the Newton laid the groundwork for the future of handhelds, including the iPad.
The Newton was an Apple misadventure that took place during Jobs’ absence from the company – when Jobs returned in the late 1990s he shut the Newton down for good.
Jobs hated the Newton’s stylus tool, which didn’t work exceptionally well in the first place.
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Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs reveals that killing the Newton was a symbolic battle in his effort to take back control of Apple.
“Mr Jobs as become the power behind the throne,” a reporter for the Financial Times wrote in 1997, the year after the Newton was scuttled.
A Newton in working condition is going for $315 on eBay while one seller with a mint one with the original packaging is asking for more than $1,000.
Macintosh TV
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Yet another project that was not christened by Jobs, this ambitious TV-computer crossover project was only on the market for five months.
The Macintosh TV was effectively a souped-up Mac computer with a remote control.
There was no picture-in-picture and you could either watch TV or use the computer, but not both at the same time.
In 1993, the world was not quite ready for a $2,000 all-in-one hunk of black Apple tech and only 10,000 units were sold.
Hockey puck mouse
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The hockey puck mouse is unmistakably late 1990s Apple: gobsmacked with popping color.
The circular mouse was difficult to orient and Gizmodo called its connection cord was “hilariously short”.
But, the hockey puck mouse did launch the use of the USB port we know and love today – even in a failure, Apple made hay.
Pippin gaming console
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The early 1990s were flush with gaming consoles that are now considered vintage.
Many 90s kids were logging heavy hours on the Playstation 1, Nintendo64 or Sega Saturn, SlashGear notes of the period.
Apple outsourced the production of the Pippin to Japanese toy manufacturer Bandai and hoped the product would serve as a multimedia center with gaming, music playing, and other entertainment capabilities.
It didn’t stick – its high price tag and unsuccessful marketing campaign led to the Pippin selling just 42,000 units.
iTunes Ping
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During a keynote in 2010, Jobs introduced Ping as “Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes.”
At the time, Facebook was gaining its vice grip on the social media landscape and had crossed 500million users by the time Ping was introduced.
But on its face, Ping was a great idea – it showed tour dates for artists and there were 160million iTunes users who were a just few clicks away from setting up Ping pages.
Tim Cook and Apple shut down Ping in 2012, about a year after Jobs’ death.
Lisa computer
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The Lisa computer may be Apple’s quintessential failure but the product was fraught with company drama and personality.
The computer was named after the daughter that Jobs was, at the time, rejecting as his child.
While the Lisa did not succeed commercially because of its supercharged price tag, its development woke up an attitude within Apple.
Jobs was booted from the Lisa team and subsequently ran the Macintosh team – he immediately instigated an interoffice rivalry between the development teams.
He told Isaacson of the Macintosh team in comparison to the Lisa team: “We were the renegades, and we wanted people to know it.”
On eBay, a seller is actively engaged in an auction with the starting bid set at $8,499.99 for a Lisa.
Apple has not connected on every attempt, and without Jobs in the building from 1985 to 1997 the company had a series of product thuds and dropped balls.
Today, Apple is steaming ahead towards its 50th anniversary with trillions of dollars of value and much more success than failure.
