Why did these Apple products fail?❌
Product Management, UX, Startups, and more — freshly curated by Zeda.io
Hello, all you product-loving folks! 🥰
Welcome to this week's edition of Product Café, your weekly cup of coffee for everything product management, startups, and more. ☕
Did you know? 💬
That the tech giant Google that’s known for multiple top-selling products worldwide has a total of 194 failed projects? It’s commonly called “The Google Graveyard.” Some of these failed products include Google+, Google Print and Google Hangouts.
This is not a real picture but just a depiction to show you some of Google’s failed products.
Credit: https://www.pixstory.com/story/killed-by-google-google-graveyard/121376:
The Apple event 🍎
I think it’s a no-brainer that I am going to talk about the most popular news this week. That's right, Leonardo Dicaprio’s dating fiasco. Kidding! It’s the Apple event of course. I am sure most of you have watched the event or heard about it from your friends, so I am just going to share with you three of my favourite updates from Apple’s amazing list.
1. AirPods Pro 2 🎧
I have been wanting an easier way to control the AirPods’ volume without having to yell “Hey Siri, turn down the volume” every time. That’s exactly what they delivered. The new AirPods come with a touch sensor on the side, which means you can control your song’s volume by moving your finger up or down.
And as much as I love the old AirPods, I hated how it beeped to be recharged after 2-3 hours, especially during those long-haul flights. The new one has much better battery life, giving up to 6 hours of listening time on a single full charge.
Another really cool yet super-needed feature is helping you find your AirPods faster. My sister had decided long back that she wasn’t going to buy the AirPods because as a careless person, she was super scared about losing one of these tiny earphones or the case itself and never finding them again. But with this new feature, each individual headphone and charging case play sounds so you can easily find it. The case also has location detection which means you can locate it with your iPhone.
Credit: https://www.apple.com/in/airpods-pro/
2. The new Apple Watch SE ⌚
Starting at $249, it is an economical option that still has important life-changing features like Car Crash detection, which means that once the watch has detected you’ve been in a crash, it will immediately contact the emergency number in your country for medical assistance. This feature is also available on the iPhone 14 series.
Credit: https://www.apple.com/in/apple-watch-se/
3. Apple Watch 8 ⌚
Other than the longer battery life, and ECG features, what really caught my eye was the new temperature sensing technology which is aimed at improving women’s health. The watch records your body temperature every night to alert you of any shifts in your baseline temperature. This data is then used to estimate when you’re likely to ovulate. When combined with your heart rate and logged cycle data, you’ll get a detailed view of your menstrual cycle.
Credit: https://www.apple.com/in/apple-watch-series-8/
Twitter Twitter on the wall, what’s the best tweet of ‘em all? 🐦
Two of Apple’s failures!
While we’re talking about Apple’s success, I think it’s also important to understand that failure is part of it, even for big tech giants.
Apple Maps 📍
Even though we have the pre-built Apple Maps app on your iPhone, we still prefer to download and use Google Maps.
Map technology relies on data collected from hundreds of millions of people over a long period of time. Google has the upper hand here because, over the years, it has been continuously collecting data from many individuals around the world to perfect its app. In short, as more people start using the app, the more data the company can collect to further improve it.
That’s why it takes years to build what Google Maps did and that’s also why when Google Maps was first introduced, it wasn’t even a tad bit close to success as it is today.
Some argue that the mistake Apple did was launching Apple Maps as a finished product. Apple should’ve ideally taken its time, gathered more data and improve the product in stealth mode before showing it to the world. Some of the major flaws that existed with Apple Maps were in the details of maps in some areas, turn-by-turn navigation gave inaccurate directions to some, and the overall experience was glitchy compared to Google Maps.
For instance, as CNNMoneyTech reported, Apple Maps provides an incorrect address for Washington, DC's Dulles Airport and directions to it that "could get a driver arrested and possibly run over by a 747."
Credit: https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2012/11/07/apple-maps-a-failure-explained-by-network-effects/
Apple Maps vs Google Maps
Credit: https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/05/13/compared-apple-maps-versus-google-maps-in-2022
iTunes 🎶
Many of you know iTunes as the place that holds your music library, but it’s much more than that, at least that’s what Apple built it to be. iTunes acts like the glue that connects your Apple phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, online media store and streaming service. The mistake Apple did was trying to squeeze in too many features on one platform. And when a single app has functionalities all over the place, the design naturally becomes all over the place as well.
Its “design is horrible, not because it has bad designers, but because they’ve been given an impossible task: cramming way too much functionality into a single app while also making it look ‘clean,’” writes iOS developer, Marco Arment.
For instance: The navigation buttons are placed at the top left corner of the window right below music scrolling. Because these buttons are inserted to the far left in Apple Music and the iTunes Store, menu options in the bar will sometimes change location after you click them which leaves the users very confused.
The role of iTunes has now been replaced with independent apps like Apple Music, Apple Podcast, Apple TV, and Apple Finder.
Read more about this here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/why-is-itunes-so-bad/399833/
That’s all folks! Have something you want to share? Put them in the comments below and we’ll get back to you soon.
See you again next week! 🥂
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