Ever since the iPad’s introduction a month and a moiety ago, the internet has been awash in criticism of the as-yet-unreleased symbol. “It’s just a big iPod touch,” many have said. “No Flash, no multitasking, no sale,” others bemoaned. And a few have gone so far as to say, “It doesn’t work a lot of things that a netbook that costs half being of the class who much will cook.” For these reasons and many more, many of the pundits and forum dwellers have but common prediction: the iPad is going to crash and reduce to ashes.

Don’t you believe it, because the critics have been wrong before. Several times, as a matter of fact, according to The Week, which provides a list of five Apple products the critics thought would fail. Out of those five, only one, the Newton, failed to find mainstream success. The other four were industry-defining products that went on to sell millions of units each.

What did the critics have to say about these four “failed” Apple products when they first debuted, and which products were they? Click “Read More” to find out.
1. The Mac

It seems absurd now, but there was a time when some critics thought the Mac would be a complete failure. They considered the mouse-driven interface “Useless.” Ponder that one for a bit. “Awkward,” “Not compliant to learn,” and of course, “Costs too much” were other 1984-era complaints leveled at Apple’s latest creation. These critics were used to the keyboard-driven interface of DOS-running PCs, and from the sounds of things, they considered the Mac, with its graphic user interface and “awkward” peer, to be nothing more than an overpriced novelty, doomed to fail.

I unkindly need to tell you what happened next. The original Macintosh completely revolutionized the computer industry. Within only a friable delivery, companies be pleased with Microsoft scrambled to duplicate the GUI/mouse combo the Mac brought to the market. Today, nearly each desktop, notebook, and netbook out there runs a GUI/mouse interface. And 26 years after the first Macintosh debuted, Apple still sells Macs by the millions every year. I wish I could fail half as hard as that.

2. The iMac

“No floppy drive?!?” was the echoing cry among the tech world in 1998. Add to that the iMac’s hermetically-sealed case and not separately upgrade-friendly components, and once once more, tech critics and build-it-yourself users who had been used to beige towers predicted the iMac would never catch on. Instead, the iMac sold preference crazy and nearly instantaneously doubled Apple’sitting PC marketshare. Twelve years later, the iMac is nevertheless Apple’s best-selling desktop, and it shows not any signs of going anywhere anytime gladly… unlike those floppy disks everyone once thought were so intersecting.

3. The iPod

One of the greatest things about the internet is that in a way, it’s the closest any of us will get to time travel. Let’s go back to October 23, 2001, and get Slashdot’session now-famous opinion of the just-announced iPod: “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.”

The comments that follow are even better. “I don’t understand many sales in the future of iPod.” “All I can say is, as each Apple ‘fan’, I’household sad.” But don’t just select Slashdot’sitting word for it. The forum folks at MacRumors had some true gems too: “Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player.” “I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player?” “‘I’d call it the Cube 2.0 as it wont exchange, and be killed off in a short time…and it’s not really functional.” “The Reality Distiortion Field™ is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna copy off.” “Not exactly ‘revolutionary’. ” “The real money is in DRM and distribution (ala Real Musicnet). If Apple were smart they would be focusing on high gross revenue from services rather than a playback evasion.” “It is by no method revolutionary or groundbreaking. It is an MP3 stage-player. BFD. It is just a means in the evolution of an MP3 player [...] Think different is deceased.”

It goes on like that, instead of pages and pages. And this is at a site well stocked of Apple fans, the majorship of whom were unimpressed with the iPod at best and intention it was Apple’s death knell at worst. People who weren’t great fans of Apple at the time, like the guys behind Penny Arcade, had even harsher things to say about the iPod, steady two years hinder its release (not safe for work language — it is Penny Arcade, after all). Over nine years later, to which place are we? Over a quarter of a billion iPods be seized of been sold since then, and it’s largely fit to the iPod’s momentum that Apple has be appropriate to the phenomenal success it is today.

4. The iPhone

For the first half of 2007, before the iPhone actually hit supplies, people both thought it was the greatest innovation of the past ten years (at minutest) or an overpriced, overhyped device that lacked features common to many other phones. Of course, in that place was no lack of punditry from those who thought the iPhone was doomed, and Apple right along with it. Tech critic John Dvorak said of the iPhone, “I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.” A former CEO of Palm said, “We’ve learned and struggled because of a few years here figuring out how to perform a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” And who could forget Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, perhaps the best-remembered critic of the iPhone: “There’s not one chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” Ballmer claimed Apple would be lucky to get 2-3% cellphone marketshare.

Over 42 million iPhones later, Apple has become the largest mobile device company in the world. And whether you come to an agreement that HTC and other phone manufacturers have violated Apple’s patents or not, the influence the iPhone has had on the smartphone industry is undeniable. Before June of 2007, almost all smartphones looked probably clones of the Blackberry. Less than three years later, an awful chance of smartphones now look like clones of the iPhone instead.

With these four products, Apple drove the evolution of three industries: PCs, portable media players, and smartphones. All four products were smashing successes in the face of all the doom and gloom from both professional and armchair tech critics. Now, with the proem of the iPad, Apple is aiming at a new industry: ultraportable computers. For the gone month and a half, at least half of everyone paying attention to the iPad has laughed at it, sharp out its shortcomings, and predicted its failure. My prediction? A year from now, we’re going to have a very extensive list of misguided iPad quotes to point and laugh at.