Failed Apple Products – Top 5 Picks

Apple Inc. is known for it’s high quality products and the hype it creates during it’s product launches. There was a time when products like the Macintosh and Apple II captivated consumers. Recently the company has increased its consumer base with elegant and attractive products such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad (According to June 2011 stats, Apple sold 200 million iOS devices, including 25 million iPads). Despite the success of these products, there are others that did not do quite well.

 

Failed Apple Products:

One of the very first products designed by Apple, Apple II, proved quite a hit with consumers and was very successful. The company decided to research and hence developed Apple III. The product was introduced in 1980 but was a commercial failure due to stability problems. This failure forced Apple to cancel the production of the product. The failure of Apple III was also influenced by the competition from IBM computers and the high price tag placed on Apple III.

Apple III is first in the line up of failed Apple products.

Apple Lisa was a personal computer developed in the 1980’s featuring a graphical user interface. When it was introduced into the market, a single computer went for $10, 000 which was way out of reach of ordinary consumers. Although the product had innovative features targeted at business consumers, its price was too high. After poor sales, Apple decided to discontinue Lisa in 1986 and destroyed thousands of Lisa computers.

In 1996, Apple in conjunction with a Japan based gaming company launched the Apple Bandai Pippin. The Apple pippin was touted by the company as one of its kind multimedia and gaming device. The product featured a CD-ROM drive and users could play games from the Macintosh and Pippin. The device could also be connected to the internet. However, when the product was eventually released the gaming market was crowded with other products such as the Nintendo, Sega Saturn and PlayStation. The company only sold 42,000 units of the product.

In 2005, Apple worked with Motorola to launch the Motorola ROKR E1. With this product, Apple intended to bring iTunes to smartphones. Although the market was ready for such a product, Motorola ROKR E1 only allowed users to transfer 100 music tracks at a time. It also featured numerous menus that made transferring of music slow and tedious. The product’s demise was quickened when Apple introduced the iPod Nano, which forced Motorola not to integrate future version of the smartphone with the iTunes platform.

This made a recent entry into the trailing list of failed apple products. Apple TV did not last long in the market. By the time it was introduced the company was riding over a wave of success with the popularity of several products such as the iPod and iTunes among others. The idea behind Apple TV was for it to be a content streamer. Apple intended users to connect the device with their computer so that they could have access to a personal video recorder or TV turner. The failure of the product is attributed to the fact that it had a limited video format and that Apple could not make a deal with content providers.

Image Credit[Wikipedia]