Why Apple's First Mac Was A Failure

Today Apple is the most valuable company in the world, with a peerless reputation for slick, stylish gadgets that are desperately coveted by its vast army of devoted worldwide superfans.

But the outlook wasn’t always so rosy for the Cupertino firm. Indeed, perhaps Apple’s most important product launch ever led directly to the company’s most striking commercial flop. So today we’re revisiting one of tech history’s greatest what ifs, and asking why the first Apple Macintosh computer failed.

The year is 1984 and a vigorous young entrepreneur named Steve Jobs – sporting rather more hair than later followers might recognize – is addressing a hushed auditorium in California to announce the birth of his new baby.

And with the uncanny knack for dramatic timing that would rapidly become his trademark, Jobs unveiled the Apple Macintosh to a waiting world.

Why Apple's First Mac Was A Failure

[theprimest]

If you're reading this you have the potential to create great things. Yes. You.

[cschuh]

I talked my Dad into buying a 128K Mac in 1984. It was the coolest thing on the planet, and State-Of-The-Art. I drew several hundred pictures using MacPaint. You could summon an 8x magnification feature called FatBits. And having just taken 2 semesters of Typing class in 10th grade, I was always on MacWrite practicing my new found skill. But the more I used it, the more I wondered "...what is wrong with this thing???", and "...why did I have to swap disks 8 times every 3 minutes. I didn't know then, but I know why now... It was a straight-up PIECE-OF-SCHITT... No hard drive in it's future... No expandabllity whatsoever... No upgrades... Wait, if you wanted an upgrade, BUY A NEW MACHINE FOR ANOTHER $2500... $500 for an external disk drive... $500 for a LOUD dot-matrix printer... Everything cost $500 more, each... Looking back now, I'm sorry Dad for draining you of $4000 for such a Caveman-like experience... MAY THE FLEAS OF A THOUSAND CAMELS INFEST ALL APPLE EMPLOYEE'S ARMPITS, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE...

[DixieGeezer]

It was the spring of 1982. A buddy in LA called me and suggested I get the Apple 3 computer. Supposedly, The greatest computer ever!! I bought the computer, $5, 650.00. This turned out to be the worst investment I had ever made. Six months later Jobs obsoleted the Apple 3 and introduce the world to Apple Lisa. About a year and a half later Lisa was obsoleted and the Mac's came out. All of us that bought the Apple 3 were screwed since there was no software other than Apple's few programs. It was a total loss for me and I never bought another Apple Product. I still have the Pen and every opportunity when I was lecturing I told this story.

[avi]

I think the only thing Steve Jobs was good at is marketing
The rest of his so-called "achievements" were merely built on other companies' achievements

[garogaryvoskorian]

Looks like it's APPLE MOTTO : We build things expensive and not valuable! Since day 1

[osopolarmovies]

It was not a failure for me, we used it professionally at work. PC was a joke at that time. Forty years later I found this Mac on a flee market for 5 Dollar. I had a diskette at home and the Mac worked with no problem.

[avi]

1:47 "Jobs's great innovation, well... he technically stole it from Xerox"
LOL, so true

[johnpaulyates]

In the 80’s, Apple tried implementing their own hardware standards, which weren’t as good as the ones created by the Open PC Market. Competition brought prices down and undercut the Mac. When Jobs returned to the company, he brought his UNIX based OS with him and built Apples new Macs using the same standard s as other manufacturers. But it has been their other products, like the iPod, the iPad and iPhone that have made the company so successful. Jobs’ removal from the company in the early days was the correct move for Apple. He didn’t understand how to run a large company. To date, Apple controls roughly 18% of the desktop and laptop market with MacOS and all their other products work so seamlessly together . It’s remarkable how a company, flailing in debt 24 yrs ago, is now the worlds most successful and admired company. They were the first to reach a Trillion dollar market cap.

[SilverBiata]

This was quite the throwback! I was born in 1985, but around 1987 or so, my dad let me play with his computer. I never got around to ask which it was, but I remember those two floppy disc slits! This has been very much indeed very informative!

[JanRademan]

1. Expensive.
2. Incompatible with Apple II software.
3. Limited or no expandability when compared to the Apple II.
4. Monochrome display.
With the market being flooded by cheaper IBM PC clones running DOS, the Mac didn't stand a chance. Even IBM was overcome by the clones in the end. Consumer will always put price over quality.

[wb_finewoodworking]

I bought a Macintosh SE and it was an outstanding computer for its time. It was much easier too use and more versatile than the MS-DOS computers of the time. I had one of those too.

[iteerrex]

Sir Isaac Newton said: The reason I see so far is that I'm standing on the shoulder giants. So it is for all time, but our task is to do the climbing.

[OldAussieAds]

I'm not going to pretend I know what it was like using an original Macintosh 128K. But I was there when the Mac Plus was new and I can tell you that was far from a failure. Paired with a SCSI hard disk and Microsoft Word and Super Paint, that thing was a godsend for doing my homework.

[LMike]

My dad had a Mac Plus. HD lasted 12 -15 years(?) It could do superscript and subscript text. Many years ahead of itself.

[francescogiuseppearagona]

The real problem with the first Macintosh was that it was far inferior not only to the competition (this wuold be forgivable) but also to the product it was supposed to take over, the Apple II. Then, in 1986, came the Apple IIGS, which it too had a GUI and was superior in every concievable way, from the CPU to the RAM to the sound hardware to the screen (The Apple IIGS had a colour screen capable of displaying up to 3200 colours, while the Macintosh had a black & white screen without any shade of gray), and it was still priced lower than the Macintosh. This is why Apple fired Steve Jobs... He was great at marketing, but knew nothing about computers.

[robm]

Apple didn’t steal from Xerox. They bought the tech including GUI. It was a business transaction, not theft. Same way Microsoft bought DOS (Formerly QDOS).

[AlistairKiwi]

I got a Mac Plus in 1987. My neighbor had the Mac 512k. She also had the upgrade 512k to 512ke you could get for it. So long ago now! Be sad to have bought the 128k.

[proplayer]

"apple is the most valuable company" some got triggered

[kythrathesuntamer]

Would I have bought the beige toaster when it launched in 1984? I wasn't alive in 1984 I was born in 1986 and only really started using computers around 1993-1994 or so when Windows 3.1 ruled the roost and remember that dislocation of having to relearn the UI when it was radically redesigned in 95 and my family decided to upgrade . I did eventually get used to it but it was an adjustment for awhile that I hated at first until I felt nuetral about it. I did have reasons by the end of the 90s to learn Linux and eventually did but I use both Windows and Linux these days on bare metal in both cases.

so I can't help but think of it through my 2024 lens of someone who knows how to source computer components and either hand assemble them together myself or at least hire geek squad to do it for me if I have trouble.

So my answer is a hard no. But that's based on what I know now.

[garyggarner]

Yes I would have purchased! A colleague of mine wrote software to work on the Mac. The software was used to calculate the lens power for an Intraocular Lens Ompnat once we determined Axial Length Measurements. The software yielded the Base Curve, Lens Power, and diameter of the IOL to be surgically implanted. This system worked for years until Updated IMacs allowed more sophisticated and definitive analysis. One company (German Company which make the best Optics available) Tried with a system that operated on a Windows 95 System. Failed! Win 98 was already out. We had three modalities to confirm our calculations and the Windows 95 was off approximately 23-27% error which would not give the patient the quality of Vision they wanted. Back to the drawing board. Mac came out with a new system that was right on the money!! Accurate and we were able to validate the accuracy of the calculations. I did not write the program - I used in Clinic. Mac did an awesome job!!