Apple Pippin: A story of desperation

This is a story about opportunity and mismanagement, of desperation and disappointment at a time when the future of entertainment was unclear. This is also a story about selling dreams to kids and the internet to adults. This is the story of Pippin.

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[junrosamura]

Scottie Pippin (The basketball player) was what always came to mind when I heard about the Pippin. I remember wanting one, just for the design.

[MarkDell]

"The crash of Intel's stock is the only sound" What an obscure video. Didn't Weird Al Parody that song too?

Loved this type of video. I would have loved it 100x more if you also had a Pippin and had a related video showing you actually getting your hands on it and how the actual device is to use, along with its history

[Shorty_Lickens]

I am the only person I know who doesn't love Apple and doesn't hate it. Everyone I meet has strong feelings one way or the other.
Was impressed by their computers in the 90's but they were so expensive it didn't matter. Their phones and media players always seemed too proprietary and demanding to be taken seriously as a good consumer product. So I just avoided them. Their cloud service is great assuming you aren't female or don't like uploading nudes on them.

[LinusBoman]

Interesting new approach! Would love to see more retrospectives on failed or obsolete platforms. OS/2? WebTV? Maybe something more like the future of tech that never was?

[KwingF]

Really like this type of video. If at all possible for future videos and similarly weird products/services, a hands-on would be great! I understand that might not be easy for a lot of things, but would love to see it if possible.

[kaiserped]

If that song were parodied by Apple these days, Tiffany's music company would demonetize them for sure.

[GAMERTAGVR]

I watched the whole video man. Good stuff and look forward to more

[AdmiralBison]

Pippin seems like a forgotten, but important failed predecessor to the AppleTV.
In regards to Pippin not having a proper OS, I think it was still a time in console history and some home PCs that many did not not having full fledged OS baked into the hardware and most of the software/chips was loaded from external disks/cartridges.

Even though Apple gets a lot of flack for a failed device, in retrospect it was not uncommon to have many failed hardware devices from large tech companies in the 90s. It was a decade of hardware experimentation.

[HiTechGuy]

Nice informative video; can you cover the Newton?

[darylewalker]

I don’t think eWorld ripped off AOL, but the reverse; AOL was based on eWorld technology.

[finpark]

@engadget Where did you get those glasses? They are beautiful....

[WarriorsPhoto]

Apple was a desperate company at one point too. All companies have issues. I learned a lot of things from this video. For that I thank you. (:

[davidwinograd]

How about the story of eWorld? I beta tested that and heard that it wound up as the foundation of AOL.

[iseptimus]

As I’m so old and lived through that period, the 3DO is more interesting. Concept is good though. Like reading an old copy of Edge.

You should talk about Copland! It is one of the weirdest development stories ever and could be a useful lesson for one or two managers out there.

[DeusEx.Machina]

I still kinda wish Apple worked on a gaming platform for AAA games. IMO The experience they offer is far superior to other platforms simply because of the integration. I have an Xbox, but can’t wait to get rid of it because Microsoft doesn’t have a plan they just produce software and hardware products and kill them if they don’t catch-up immediately, and they also keep changing up the names of their products almost every other day.

[zomblog]

You should do this kind of video for every game console in history

[Cimlite]

It's so weird how Apple never could get gaming right. Even today, they're so far behind everyone else it's not even funny.

[cadenchurchill]

Awesome video! I’d love to see more like this!

[dilibau]

Imma make a really original joke now : Apple Pimpin'...