Evans’ six great Apple failures:
• The Hockey Puck Mouse
• The G4 Cube
• iPod Hi-Fi
• FireWire
• Apple Pippin
• Steve Jobs’ irreplaceability
Full article, with Evans’ reasoning behind each of his choices, here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Hockey Puck Mouse certainly was a design failure. We’ll go along with the iPod Hi-Fi and Pippin, too. But, FireWire is “a failure” that “the company should never have been part of?” Puleeze. And, the G4 Cube likely helped Apple learn important design lessons that were later put to use in a variety of very successful products, including the Mac mini, MacBook Air, iPods, and iOS devices. We don’t consider the G4 Cube as a “failure” in anything but unit sales (and this was mainly due to its price). The machine worked as advertised and, because of its stunning design, it also turned a lot of eyeballs Apple’s way at a time when not so many were looking at Apple at all. And nobody is irreplaceable. When Jobs is no longer Apple CEO, things will change, but that doesn’t mean that Apple won’t be able continue to lead the tech world (especially since most of the tech world seems rabidly intent on copying whatever Apple does). It certainly helps ease our minds that Apple now has extremely competent people like Tim Cook in place and ready to go.
What an idiot! FireWire a failure? This guy has obviously never done anything with a computer other than word processing and downloading porn. And the cube a failure? That was an awesome design, in its convection cooled beauty!
I still use a hockey puck mouse to this day!!! I have about 5 back-ups also!
I luv me some firewire also, still hate that iPods no longer support it 🙁
I agree with MDN take. The hockey puck mouse was a failure because to broke a cardinal rule of industrial design, it put form over function. In a way, the new magic mouse is similar for a lot of people, I just find the thing to low in my big hand to be of any use.
Agreed. But iff the charging connection was located at the head (not tail), it would have been far more useful as a wired mouse. Yes, it was a form over function issue. Well, whose design was it?
Note to self, do not move Mac-nuggets cheese…
I still use a hockey puck mouse too and have backups for when this one finally failsl. It fits my hand better than any other (and I’ve tried them all).
Firewire a failure? Sure, it lost to USB in the marketshare war, but it not only tremendously useful, but still viable in a small segment. Still better than USB, too. A superior technology that is still relevant today.
I didn’t mind the round mouse. It wasn’t great, but I had no problems with it. However, I know most people hated it.
I would add epic failure CEO John Scully to this list, for almost single-handedly scuttling Apple in Steve’s absence..
Nobody is irreplaceable that is true, however there are those whose intrinsic value to a company is immeasurable. Steve Jobs is such a person. If it weren’t for him, a site like MDN would not be possible since there probably would not be an Apple to discuss any more. Apple fanboys would be relegated to the irrelevance of “remember when.” I fear the day when Steve Jobs is no longer CEO as we’ve seen what the world looks like without him and it wasn’t pretty.
Yeah, I liked the hockey puck mouse, too. Very comfortable to use.
where can I buy that “product or event”: Steve Jobs’ irreplaceability ?
Hockey puck mouse? Worst mouse anyone ever made.
Pippin? I never personally touched one, but by all accounts, not a good idea.
Everything else on his list? Pulease –
Even the iPod hi-fi. It did what it was advertised to do and did it well when there was nothing like it on the market. Sure, it doesn’t exist now, but only if you don’t count the hundreds of clones from Logitech, iHome, Bose, Altech Lansing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… Consider it a reference design showing the other companies how to build a new class of accessory.
As far as SJ is concerned, if he wasn’t one of a kind to begin with, every company could do what apple does. Unfortunately, there is only one Steve Jobs. How can his vision, drive, passion, intelligence, charisma, wisdom, etc be both what created Apple, and somehow one of their great failures?
FireWire was and still is better than USB!
Firewire dwindled in the market, eventually, because an inferior technology (USB 2.0) was “good enough” for most people.
However, in the early part of decade, Firewire gave Macs:
• the ability to download video clips off a video camera
• the ability to sync with iPods at speeds considered ridiculously fast at the time
• the ability to use large storage devices seamlessly
If you’re old enough to remember how painfully slow USB 1.0 was, Firewire was a vital part of the “Digital Hub” strategy. It had a good, and necessary, run.
Still using FW 400 with my videocamera, and FW 800 for backups!
@ Mac-nugget
Was that supposed to be English? Also, “to” and “too” are two different words in the English language.
The G4 cube was ahead of the curve. Apple saw that people and tech were moving away from PCI cards, and that Firewire/USB would be the interface of choice. However, Apple expected that all sorts of devices would be available for the Cube, like Firewire audio interfaces, Hard Drives, etc. And they simply were not there……until about 6 months after Apple cancelled the Cube.
People pan the Cube cause it’s not expandable, etc, etc. It’s no different than iMacs that were being made at the time…..I loved my Cube until it died in 2008……..
Computerworld headquarters here I come!!! Prepare for an ass-whopping!
Oh, yeah, September 5th will mark the 10 year anniversary of when I bought my Cube.
ericdano,
I mourn your loss.
i have a Cube still, running as a file server on my AE. it’s only 100bastT but good enough for smaller stuff. like my music collection.
Forgot to say that she’s still running – cranking through Folding@home proteins as I type this. Surfs the internet pretty well, too – if ClickToFlash is enabled (which it always is).
I would probably still be on a Windows machine if not for the Cube. Someone else liked it too as the broke into my house to get it :>(
Strongly disagree.
I still have G4 Cube, it’s a thing of beauty.
I loved hockey puck mouse, I have a small hand and it was just perfect. I wish it was an option these days.
I easily fell in love with the Cube. It was stunning to look at and I used to pull the inside out, just because it was cool. It is going to be my favorite Apple machine of all time. Not a failure at all.
I think the real failures were the non-Jobs machines. Macs that were in beige. Those were failures.
I’ll defend the hifi indefinitely. I bought one, use it as a my “home theatre” speaker with the optical cable. I live in an apartment and don’t want/wont’ get a surround system. Something that a) sounds great and b) looks nice that also doesn’t need a receiver is pretty awesome.
The thing has lasted through MANY long weekends at a cottage, through the rain, dropped, etc etc. Would love to buy another one.
Hey Nuke, even for downloading porn, FW is great. You want to back up your smut, after all.
Puck mouse: twelve years ago;
Cube: ten years ago
iPod HiFi: four years?
FireWire: alive and kicking ass;
Pippin: pulease, that was in 1995 and Apple’s CEO was Michael Spindler, the Performa Man;
Steve Jobs: better having Sj than Michael Dell who only thinks he is irreplaceable
Any company that does not fail at something is not trying hard enough to be successful at anything. It always boggles the mind why anyone spends that much time focusing on some of Apple’s products that did not perform as expected in the marketplace, instead to laud the great successes. A truly innovative company will always push the envelope to be successful and in so doing will experience a bit of failure along the way. Companies that play it safe (Dell) will always produce mediocre copycat products, and thus their products would be less likely to be considered failures because the expectation of the marketplace of those products is so low to begin with.
I really liked the hockey puck mouse, but I understand why other people didn’t. It was also great for kids.
FireWire can only be considered a “failure” because Apple was not aggressive enough in marketing it over USB. The licensing fees were too high, so PC manufacturers went for the much cheaper USB, especially when USB 2 came out.
Looks like Apple learned its lesson from FireWire though, as H.264 is going to be cheap/free to fight off its competitors.