As Apple marks 50 years since its founding by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, its legacy includes both transformative successes and notable failures.
The iPod, launched in 2001, revolutionised how people listened to music. While MP3 players already existed, Apple made them simple, stylish, and easy to use. Combined with iTunes, it helped bring legal digital music into the mainstream and reshaped the music industry.
The iPhone, introduced in 2007, had an even bigger impact. It merged a phone, music player, and internet device into one, setting the template for modern smartphones. Today, it influences how people communicate, work, shop, and consume media globally.
The Apple Watch, released in 2015 under CEO Tim Cook, pushed wearable technology into everyday life. With features like fitness tracking, heart monitoring, and notifications, it became not just a gadget but a health and lifestyle tool, dominating the smartwatch market.
Not all Apple products succeeded. The Apple Lisa, launched in 1983, was technologically advanced with a graphical interface and mouse, but its extremely high price meant it failed commercially. It showed that innovation needs the right pricing and audience to succeed.
The butterfly keyboard, introduced in 2015 for MacBooks, was designed to make laptops thinner. However, it became widely criticised for reliability issues and poor typing experience, forcing Apple to scrap it within a few years.
More recently, the Vision Pro headset has struggled to gain traction. Despite being Apple’s big step into mixed reality, its high cost, bulky design, and limited content have made it less appealing to mainstream users.
Together, these products highlight Apple’s influence: when it gets things right, it reshapes entire industries—but even the most powerful tech company doesn’t always succeed.