Apple has had a lot of commercial hits (that have become iconic) over the past few years; the list is fairly well known and need not be reviewed. However, the firm has had some big-misses too (Mobile Me anyone?) Towards that end, all the flack that the firm is catching over having replaced Google Maps in their latest (iOS6) software update (which at this juncture has revealed that the firm is essentially weak within this area in comparison to Google / other related services, etc.) is justifiable in the court-of-public-opinion.
Independent of the aforementioned, for those of you that can’t recall Apple actually missing the mark (big-time) at any other time (which is possible)… recall the Newton (an early failed PDA) eMate 300 (the first netbook that was ahead of this categories’ time that was also a failure) Macintosh TV (ditto that for being too far ahead too) and the U2 iPod (which could be argued was not a failure as much as a niche offering) although Bono’s profile (akin to Jerry West’s being used by the NBA) is still a prevalent iTunes’ icon.
(Source) ZD Net: http://goo.gl/htWpe