50 years of Apple
We’re celebrating Apple’s 50th birthday with a week of content about the tech giant. It covers everything from personal recollections from our writers to the greatest — and worst — Apple gadgets as voted by you, and you can read it all on our 50 years of Apple page.
Excalibur. The Holy Grail. Pandora’s Box. Apple Car. Hang on — one of those doesn’t quite fit. But it turns out that while broader human history has given rise to many amazing mythical objects, so too specifically has Apple.
These are the products we heard about in hushed whispers during the company’s first 50 years that never made it into the real world and instead went on a fast-track to the Apple graveyard.
But what were they? And why weren’t they? Let’s find out!
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1. Apple Car (2014–2024)
Codenamed Project Titan, the fabled Apple Car was eventually lobbed onto the Apple Scrapheap after a decade of tinkering. By then, it had reportedly transformed its appearance more often than Optimus Prime hopped up on sugared Energon.
One minute, it was a semi-autonomous electric vehicle that resembled a giant Magic Mouse. (You can only hope the charging port wasn’t inconveniently located underneath.) Later, it was a futuristic minivan compared to cutting-edge industry prototypes or, less charitably, a loaf of bread.
Ultimately, Apple decided it would sooner integrate its tech into other vehicles than make one itself, although not before an Apple Car prototype suffered the indignity of being rear-ended by a Nissan Leaf doddering along at 15mph.
2. Big Mac (1984)
BigMac was actually the main focus of this family, with a portrait display for pro workflows and high-end internals.After Steve was gone, Sculley killed BigMac—and threw the BabyMac out with the MacBathwater. The new strategy? Emulate IBM exactly with a big CPU box: the Mac II. pic.twitter.com/13hkbCP0VyFebruary 20, 2022
If nothing else, it’s a pity this product didn’t make it, because it would have been entertaining to watch Apple and McDonald’s throwing lawyers at one another. But this computer was almost the opposite of cheap fast food, reportedly destined to sport a snazzy portrait display, way more power than a Mac, and Unix underpinnings.
When Steve Jobs was booted out of Apple, Big Mac became Dead Mac, and a project that had sneakily been rattling away in the background eventually arrived, with the much less fun name of “Macintosh II.”
Although with Apple alumni having revealed that the Big Mac prototype never went beyond a circuit board mounted on wood, perhaps that’s just as well.
3. Apple Ring (from 2013)
With Apple’s penchant for wanting to make computers “disappear,” the Apple Ring would seem like a logical next step in its wearable line. Such a device would make even a 3rd-gen iPod shuffle look hefty by comparison — although it’s hard to say what it would be used for. Health tracking? Gestural control of other Apple gear? Electrocuting your finger whenever you dare to criticize Apple?
The Apple Ring remains in the realm of myths for now, presumably because other smart rings haven’t set the world alight, and Apple’s solved most associated use cases with the Apple Watch.
Well, that and most people aren’t keen on devices that do a bunch of stuff but lack screens and controls. Just ask all those previous 3rd-gen iPod shuffle owners…
4. Apple TV (2010ish)
Today, you can watch Apple TV (the streaming service) using the Apple TV app (er, an app) on an Apple TV (the hardware). But analysts for years salivated at the prospect of Apple creating Apple TV (an actual television). You imagine the marketing team, less so.
Steve Jobs reportedly said Apple had “cracked the code” for a user-friendly, integrated set that eliminated the complexities of existing televisions. The resulting product would apparently have come in three sizes, and cost twice the price of similar contemporaneous televisions.
It’s questionable, though, that the masses would feel compelled to double their outlay when they could pay half and get the same experience by using an Apple TV (little black box version). Which is probably why the project was abruptly cancelled after a few years — apt, given that the same so often happens to TV shows.
5. PowerBook G5 (2005)
Apple’s “Intel Inside” era was largely driven by its partnership with IBM hitting the rocks. The PowerPC G5 chip inside Mac towers never reached promised speeds. Worse, because it was so power-hungry and heat-intensive, it was no good for laptops, which remained stranded on the G4.
Apple valiantly aimed for the impossible, while internet wags less valiantly created mock-ups of slab-like PowerBooks, imagining the whopping heatsinks they’d need to run a G5.
On the plus side, we can guess what a PowerBook G5 would have been like, since the first Intel MacBook Pro was basically a PowerBook G4 with a different chip. Imagine one of those, then, only with fans sounding like a jet engine, desperately trying to keep the thing from melting.
6. Apple Watch with camera (2016–2025)
Even Captain Kirk’s fancy wrist communicator didn’t have video. But that didn’t stop Apple optimistically attempting to add a camera to Apple Watch. A slew of patents and rumors suggest this feature became a near-obsession, with Apple looking to embed a camera into the Digital Crown, within a detachable component, or on the end of a pose-able watch band.
Proponents cheered on the idea of an Apple Watch for FaceTime and object scanning. Critics worried it could join smart glasses in becoming a PR nightmare due to surreptitious recording, and had concerns about battery life and usability.
For now, Apple seems content to leave cameras on devices you naturally point at things — although rumblings suggest camera-equipped AirPods remain in contention. Sigh.
7. Apple Paladin (mid-1990s)
#MARCHintosh! Maybe the right time to start your home office… pic.twitter.com/R9flrotXdmMarch 10, 2023
Remember the digital hub? That was Apple’s broadly successful idea to place a Mac at the center of your digital existence. Before that – and the return of Steve Jobs – there was the Apple Paladin, the digital hub’s evil LinkedIn twin.
OK, that’s unfair, but only because LinkedIn didn’t exist back then. Nor, really, did the internet. So Paladin – which also went under the inappropriately exciting codename Project X – attempted to mash together a computer, a fax machine, a scanner and a telephone.
Reportedly, a few prototypes escaped into the wild, and so this final entry is arguably merely borderline mythical. More like an Apple coelacanth, then — and equally prehistoric.
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