“At the time Apple announced all of the following, the Mac faithful gasped, asked if hell had frozen over, or wondered what reality Steve Jobs was distorting. But in retrospect, all of these seemingly stupid Apple moves were actually brilliant,” Webomatica writes.
Seemingly stupid Apple moves that were actually brilliant:
• The Lisa
• Sacking Steve Jobs
• Buying NeXT
• Killing the clones
• Working with Microsoft
• iMac
• iPod and the iTunes Store
• The Cube
• iPod shuffle
• Moving to Intel
Full article here.
the cube was actually a seemingly brilliant move that actually turned out stupid, overpriced and under powered.
andy,
You’re a dumbass. The cube is the most amazing computer ever to have been created. I have a render farm of cubes delegating tasks to be assigned to my mac pro. The setup works like a charm.
There are more but I am buggered if I can remember them?
Leo
thinking differently
I cannot get the link to work.
not sueing the $#?*@ out of MS when they first released windoze.
Just because a moves works out for you in the end, does not mean it was brilliant. Sacking Steve would be one of those cases. The company went to hell after he left, and it took him years after his return to implement all the cool stuff he brought over with NeXT. Those changes could have occurred years earlier if he’d not been ousted.
Perhaps they would never have happened at all, either. But that doesn’t mean ousting Steve was brilliant in any way whatsoever.
I still use my Cube. It is a wonderful machine. It’s been upgraded though, with a 1.8 Gigahertz G4
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nahh, that’s still a stupid move
I have to put a vote in for killing the eMate.
It was an exciting idea. Lots of schools got on board. Heck I still see them in schools all over. An under-powered mobile device would have only left education stuck in a world of gray scale worksheet learning instead of multimedia creation. I cringe everytime I hear of more palms going into schools.
Thanks to Apple for getting out of that space and bringing the iBook/MacBook to students.
Cpt. Obvious,
Are you any relation to Major Dufas?
word,
i alike the cube also, no need for insults but it sold like crap cause it was underpowered and overpriced for the time, meaning, good idea, actually turned out bad, i was pointing out it was the opposite to what the article is stating, chill out
There’s no way to know what “might have been” since it never was. And never will be. It is what it is.
More praise for the Cube! Way ahead of its time, evidently. Grossly under-appreciated by bean-counter mentalities that can see no further than dollars per MHz.
When Apple retired the Cube, there was a huge hole in their product lineup that no one talked about. Anyone who wanted one of Apple’s sleek flat-panel displays had to power it with a floor-standing Monster Mac that was total overkill for non-professional users. The Mac Mini should be called “Cube, Jr.”
I don’t know that the Apple faithful (me included) were wondering what Steve was thinking when they released the original iMac, the iPod, iTMS, or the shuffle. I didn’t think it was a blunder when they came out with the Cube either. Just didn’t sell.
Add the Newton to this list. Stupid move since it was way ahead of its time. I still own two of them.
dropping the floppy drive; USB ports; the iPod shuffle…
Doh, i”m an idiot.. he mentioned the shuffle.
The Cube was a great machine. Yes, it cost about $300 too much, but it introduced SILENT computing. It was small, elegant and beautiful, too. Yes, expansion was limited, but aside from adding RAM, most people NEVER upgrade their computers. it just made sense on so many levels.I had thought it would be a huge success, but alas it was not.
When Apple really started sliding downhill was when they hired Michael Spindler as CEO. Talk about bum mistakes, aside from canning Steve Jobs, that was one of the biggest. Hiring Gil (the Mac is a MagLite) Amelio was a bummer, too.
Those were the days when they sold pro and consumer machines that were almost exactly the same, except in name, with models that differed only in hard drive size and RAM, yet had different names and model numbers. There was no build-to-order. It was ridiculous trying to keep it all straight.
Those were the days when Apple made and sold nearly every peripheral imaginable and were trying to compete with HP, Canon and Epson.
Word, word! I’m glad the Cube is finally getting its props!
Cubert
Not protecting their OS from bastardization?
No, wait, that was just stupid.
Jimbo von Winskinheimer is right. iPod, iTMS and iMac did not seem stupid at all when they were released. These all revolutionized their markets. iPod and iTMS took years to be understood, but iMac was an instant super-success.
How could the “Mac faithful” have gasped over the Lisa: The Lisa was introduced a year before the Macintosh.
the mac mini is a much better “cube”
and I’m speaking from a guy who’s owned 2 cubes and now owns 4 Mac Mini’s
Black is white, up is down.