Do You Remember Apple’s Biggest Blunders?

Memorials are often built so we don’t forget. The Mac and iPod maker is doing great these days.

Many users may not know or remember Apple’s Dark Ages, years of blunders. Do you remember?

Any company with an iconic culture and a desire to innovate willl have a closet full of products that didn’t make it.

Not just those that didn’t make it to market, but those that failed. Apple’s blunders will fill a closet or two.

Macs led the way to the popular GUI, graphical user interface that dominates Windows PCs and other devices these days.

It’s easy to forget that the iPod is a mere child at five years old, yet dominates a market littered with also ran products.

Apple has their share of product blunders, strategic mistakes—the results of arrogance, poor leadership, and changing markets.

How many do you remember? A quick look at Wikipedia reveals details of a company in transition, steaming ahead, leaving a trail of broken products behind.

A romantic view of Apple history shows Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak slaving away in a garage, building the first truly mass produced personal computer.

Following the successes of the Apple I, Apple II, and IIe, what did the Cupertino computer maker foist upon the world?

A disaster in the form of the Apple III. Different look, different operating system, different everything, high priced, and bug ridden.

Even the Mac was not an overnight success, though much less expensive than the failed Lisa.

Mac sales were so poor that Apple eventually booted Steve Jobs from his own company.

Apple’s Golden Age was from 1989 to the early 1990s.

Market share peaked, Macs were sold everywhere, and Apple sold everything from cameras to scanners to printers.

Popular perception says Apple blundered by not licensing the Mac OS to compete with PCs, licensed by Microsoft and manufactured by everyone.

Another blunder of consideration is Apple’s licensing of windowing technology to Microsoft. Yet another blunder occured when Apple finally licensed Mac OS to other Mac makers.

Apple also bought Steve Jobs’ NeXT and brought in a Mac OS replacement operating system in 1997. In retrospect, that wouldn’t be a blunder, right?

Blunders? How about the Cube? No desktop PC was as attractive, chic, or stunning, or overpriced as the Cube.

Some think that Apple failed, as pointed out by Roughly Drafted. Those that truly failed are no longer around. Osborne, Victor, Xerox, Epson, Franklin, and others failed. Apple did not.

Apple continues to innovate and succeed, though product failures are fewer and farther between (can you say .Mac?).

What are the most memorable Apple failures? Which one of the Apple flops did you buy and why? What path could Apple have taken to avoid some of the most glaring blunders?

Importantly, what does Apple need to continue to do to avoid blunders in the future (can you say .Mac?)?