> demos that failed to deliver actual user value
Does Apple have a a history of doing this?
I think that's why people are excited.
Does Apple have a a history of doing this?
I think that's why people are excited.
On the software side there are more misses, but also the stakes are lower.
It's a great track record for thirty years, of course. All the other big tech companies have graveyards full of half-assed product launches.
Your definition of success seems extraordinarily high, if these products were failures. Maybe measured by items sold. But then each of them stands in nearly every single design museum like MoMA, history books, and were clear stepping stones to the Mac mini (cube, sunflower without display), and ipod/phone (newton). So bottom line they were a clear success to Apple’s enormous brand value.
... except ... when I write iOS software (for the most successful product of all time), I am frequently using types that have "NS" prefixes.
I wonder where they came from?
No, Apple bought NeXT after the failure of Copland to birth a replacement for the creaky and leaky MacOS (BeOS was the big alternative, but Apple thought they were asking for too much).
And NeXT proceeded to take over: Apple bought NeXT in February 1997 keeping Jobs back as an advisor, Jobs staged a boardroom coup to remove Amelio in July, and was then named interim CEO.
Following that he started cutting into the existing product lines and placing NeXT people (Tevanian , Forstall), promoting people he was interested in (Ive), or hiring them from outside (Cook). Basically reshaping the company.
A decade or so later, Apple was on the tail end of a long, slow, downward slide. The team wasn't happy with the current state of their Mac operating system, and bought out NeXT to use their software as the basis of its replacement (Mac OS X).
Jobs, as CEO of NeXT, came back to Apple as a consultant, but was CEO again in a matter of years.
It's already clear the Vision Pro is a milestone for VR and Apple. I'm not sure if that can translate to market success for several years at least.
Also how is the 1st gen watch a failure? It sold millions immediately, and was a huge commercial success. It pretty much started a gold rush for digital watches again.
I think it's fair to say the new "Apple" (last 15 years or so), has been pretty good with exceeding expectations and breaking through barriers that other companies just couldn't.
The design still looks incredible too, 20+ years later.
I will grant that the Newton failed. In the Apple hardware category, I'd also add the iPod Hi-Fi, the butterfly keyboard, and the touch bar.
That said, Apple's failures are rare and their multi-decade track record of delivering on hype is unsurpassed.
It was too expensive to manufacture and Apple wasn't sure they could sell it, so they just didn't make any. Hard to believe that could happen to a Mac model today.
What was a failure about that? It looked good and worked well.
> solid gold first-gen Apple Watch
In what way did the gold watch fail? It was the first gen watch, the same hardware as the rest, just made of gold for rich people. It didn’t fail any more than any other color did.
The Sunflower iMac was discontinued even before its successor shipped.
The Apple Watch Edition was supposed to grow Apple into a luxury brand and expand its margins massively (you can find many interviews with Jony Ive from 2015 where he explains this thinking). This strategy was a dud.
No one seriously thought that the Apple Watch was going to be an iPhone size hit. It’s a complete straw man argument.
It does not mean what you clearly think it means.
Instead, you pretended as if they said AW as an entire category was a failure.
Next time, reply to what is written in the comment, not what is easier to argue against.
This is not and has never been the bar for "failure". Stop pretending it is just because it makes your argument easier.
The comment you replied to states:
> The Apple Watch Edition was supposed to grow Apple into a luxury brand and expand its margins massively (you can find many interviews with Jony Ive from 2015 where he explains this thinking). This strategy was a dud.
Show how this specific thing is untrue, not your own definition of failure. Was that not Apple's play with the AWE? Was it not a failure, almost immediately discontinued? What exact part of that statement is false?
This is the real strawman and your projection is plainly obvious.
At least you make it plainly obvious.
I think the killer was that in the Platforms State of the Union, they didn't show anybody wearing the thing, even while saying "and I can send it to the device and look at it there". Almost like they were embarrassed by it, or something...