When you type “top 10 apple” into a search bar, you’re probably expecting the latest iPhone or a slick new MacBook. What you’ll actually find is a hidden hallway of missteps, miscalculations, and outright flops that Apple endured on its way to becoming a tech titan. After squeaking out of a near‑death experience in the mid‑1990s, the Cupertino giant surged back with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Yet even the most successful companies have a few bruises on their résumé. Below we walk through the ten most infamous Apple failures, from the pricey Apple III to the ill‑fated Lemmings Super Bowl ad.
Why the Top 10 Apple Flops Matter
Each of these blunders tells a story about ambition, market pressure, and the occasional misread of consumer desire. By studying them, we get a clearer picture of how Apple learned to turn setbacks into stepping stones for future triumphs.
10 Apple III
Apple proudly touted the Apple II as the catalyst for the personal‑computer revolution in the 1970s. By 1980, the company sensed a need to move into the business arena, especially as IBM was gearing up to launch its own PC. The Apple III emerged from this strategic pressure, bearing the goodwill of the Apple II name and a suite of forward‑thinking features such as a fan‑less chassis for silent operation and an optional 512 KB of RAM—an impressive figure for the era.
Despite the hype, the Apple III’s price tag was a deal‑breaker. Configurations ranged from $3,495 to $4,995, a staggering sum for a personal computer in 1980 (roughly equivalent to a high‑end workstation today). The lofty cost alone turned many potential buyers away before the machine even hit the shelves.
Apple’s decision to omit a cooling fan proved disastrous. The heat generated inside the case caused chips to loosen, rendering the computer inoperable. In a bizarre piece of tech support, Apple suggested users lift the unit five centimeters (about two inches) off a desk and then drop it to reseat the chips—a remedy that sounded more like a prank than a fix.
Combine the prohibitive price, the overheating hardware, and the absurd “drop‑it” troubleshooting, and the Apple III’s reputation crumbled quickly. It marked Apple’s first major product stumble, setting a cautionary precedent for future launches.
9 Hockey Puck Mouse
Apple’s design obsession is legendary, and the 1998 iMac ushered in a new era of translucent, candy‑colored plastics. The accompanying mouse—dubbed the “hockey puck” for its round, disc‑like silhouette—was billed by Steve Jobs as “the best mouse ever created.” Yet skepticism was already brewing before the iMac shipped.
In everyday use, the mouse’s tiny size and unconventional shape caused hand cramping, and its perfectly round body made it difficult to determine the correct orientation. Users often found themselves fumbling for the right grip, a problem Apple attempted to mitigate in a later revision by adding a subtle notch at the top of the device.
The market responded quickly, spawning a snap‑on plastic sleeve that transformed the puck into a more traditional shape, as well as a slew of third‑party mice that retained the iMac’s colorful aesthetic while offering ergonomic designs. Apple eventually retired the puck mouse, replacing it with the Mighty Mouse and later the Magic Mouse.
8 EWorld
When the public first ventured onto the “information superhighway,” many assumed they needed more than just a dial‑up connection and a web browser. Services like AOL packaged both connectivity and a user‑friendly interface, making the online world accessible to the masses.
Apple attempted to capture a slice of this market with eWorld, a service that presented the Internet as a virtual village. Unfortunately, the offering suffered from steep dial‑up fees and was limited to Macintosh computers—a critical flaw when roughly 95 % of personal computers at the time ran Microsoft Windows.
Launched in June 1994, eWorld never gained traction and was officially shut down by March 1996. Users who tried to launch the application after that date were met with a stark message announcing the service’s demise.
7 Mac Clones
Microsoft’s dominance in the desktop arena was bolstered by a thriving ecosystem of IBM‑compatible clone manufacturers. Apple, however, kept a tighter grip on its hardware: to run Mac OS, you had to buy a Mac.
By the mid‑1990s, Apple’s finances were precarious, and internal advocates pushed for a clone strategy similar to Microsoft’s. In 1995, Apple granted a Mac OS license to Power Computing, followed by Motorola and UMAX, allowing these firms to produce “Mac clones.”
The venture backfired. Instead of expanding market share, the clones cannibalized Apple’s own sales, delivering only modest licensing fees while eroding the premium hardware margins Apple relied upon. When Steve Jobs returned in 1997, he swiftly ended the clone program by leveraging contractual limits that only permitted the clone makers to ship versions of Mac OS 7.
6 Newton
John Sculley’s pet project, the Newton, was a pioneering personal digital assistant (PDA) that predated the Palm Pilot and modern smartphones. Its most celebrated feature—handwriting recognition—promised to convert stylus‑written notes into digital text.
Unfortunately, the technology was far from ready. The Newton’s recognition engine produced frequent errors, turning simple words into garbled output. The fiasco became pop‑culture fodder, earning mockery in the Doonesbury comic strip, a Saturday Night Live sketch, and even an episode of The Simpsons.
When Steve Jobs reclaimed leadership of Apple, he swiftly discontinued the Newton line, redirecting the company’s focus toward the iPhone and iPad—devices that would later perfect the concept of intuitive, touch‑based input.
5 PowerMac G4 Cube
The PowerMac G4 Cube is a design masterpiece that still commands admiration from collectors and even earned a spot in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Its sleek, cube‑shaped chassis was a bold statement of aesthetic ambition.
However, Apple misread the market’s willingness to pay a premium for pure form. The base model sold for $1,799 without a monitor, while a more powerful and expandable PowerMac G4 tower was available for $200 less. Many prospective buyers chose to wait for the used market, where the Cube could be purchased at a price that better reflected its technical specifications.
Introduced in July 2000, the Cube’s sales faltered, prompting Apple to discontinue the line just a year later, in July 2001.
4 Lisa
The Lisa was Apple’s first foray into graphical user interfaces (GUIs), arriving a full year before the Macintosh. It offered icons, windows, and a point‑and‑click experience that would later become industry standard.
Two critical flaws doomed the Lisa. First, its price tag—$9,995 for a base model—was astronomical, equivalent to roughly $25,000 today. Second, the machine’s 5 MHz Motorola 68000 processor was sluggish, especially when Apple’s engineers were already working on a faster, cheaper alternative: the Macintosh.
When the Macintosh launched a year later with the same processor running at 8 MHz, it delivered a 60 percent speed boost at a fraction of the cost. Existing Lisa units were repurposed as Macintosh XL machines, while unsold inventory ultimately ended up in landfills.
3 Pippin
The Pippin represented Apple’s tentative entry into the video‑game console arena. Rather than engineering a brand‑new platform, Apple repurposed the hardware of the Macintosh Classic II, encasing it in a console‑like shell and bundling a game controller.
Its purpose was ambiguous—perhaps to encourage developers to create more Mac games, or to test the waters of the console market without heavy R&D investment. Apple initially launched the Pippin in Japan, hoping the market would embrace the hybrid device.
However, the Pippin couldn’t compete with dedicated consoles such as the Nintendo 64. After a brief U.S. availability window beginning in June 1996, the product was pulled from shelves in both Japan and the United States within a year.
2 Copland
Following the groundbreaking 1984 Macintosh, Apple faced a dilemma: the original Mac OS was revolutionary but aging. The company needed a modern operating system with features like true multi‑user support and protected memory, yet feared alienating its loyal user base.
Copland was Apple’s internal effort to deliver a next‑generation OS while preserving backward compatibility. Development began in 1994, and a preview was released to developers in 1996, showcasing advanced capabilities.
Despite significant investment, Copland never reached the market. Gil Amelio, Apple’s CEO at the time, opted to acquire NeXT’s OpenStep operating system instead, a move that also brought Steve Jobs back to the company. The Copland project was quietly abandoned, leaving a costly scar on Apple’s history.
1 Lemmings Commercial
Apple’s iconic 1984 Super Bowl ad, directed by Ridley Scott, is celebrated as one of the greatest commercials ever made. Riding that wave of fame, Apple returned to the Super Bowl in 1985 with a follow‑up spot titled “Lemmings.” This time, the ad was helmed by Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother.
“Lemmings” promoted the concept of a “Macintosh Office,” a bundled suite of technologies that would let multiple Macs share files and printers. The commercial depicted a line of suited businessmen marching off a cliff, only to be halted at the last moment by a voice‑over promising the Macintosh Office. Critics viewed the ad as patronizing, interpreting it as an insult to potential customers.
The backlash signaled the start of a darker period for Apple. By the end of that year, Steve Jobs had departed, and Microsoft’s Windows began its march toward dominance on IBM‑compatible PCs. Apple would not fully rebound until the 1998 launch of the iMac, which restored its reputation for design and innovation.