Huge Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) earnings are due out Tuesday afternoon. Revenue is projected to come in at $67.5 billion in Q1 - more sales in a three-month period than Google Inc. generated in all of 2014.
Apple is swimming in cash now - but this masterful $650 billion tech giant had plenty of failures along its path to success.
These are some of the biggest Apple flops of all time...
7 Cringe-Worthy Apple Flops
Apple Flop No. 1: The Apple III, 1980
The idea for the Apple III was sound: a professional personal computer aimed at the enterprise market.
But ingenuity was lost in execution.
You see, Steve Jobs insisted on a chassis too small for the components required because he wanted a sleeker product. He also refused to let engineers install a cooling fan.
As a result, the motherboard would quickly overheat, causing chips to pop out of their sockets and the machine to malfunction. Trashed by the tech media of the day, the Apple III had lousy sales. That left the door open for the IBM PC, which arrived a year later and included Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq: MSFT) PC DOS. When the Apple III was discontinued in 1984, only 65,000 units had been sold and AAPL was out $60 million.
What came next was not a product, but a decision that turned out much differently than Jobs had intended...
Apple Flop No.2: The One-Button Mouse (1983-2005)
Jobs' belief in simplicity resulted in a years-long obsession with the one-button mouse. That was even after Windows PCs had proven the advantages of a multi-button device. Eventually Jobs gave in.
However, he instructed Apple engineers to come up with a unique, innovative design. And that became 2005's Mighty Mouse.
Apple Flop No. 3: The "Hockey Puck" Mouse (1998)
Jobs really has had a bad history with mice.
While the original iMac series was the product that breathed new life into the company, the round-shaped mouse that came with it was one of Apple's most hated accessories. Users had a hard time grasping it and couldn't tell which way was up, which sent the cursor flying in unexpected directions.
Apple replaced it with the more conventional (but still single-button) Apple Pro Mouse in 2000.
Apple Flop No. 4: The Power Mac G4 Cube (2000)
To his credit, Jobs has always sought elegance and simplicity in his products, a trait that gave us many of Apple's best ideas.
But, as the G4 Cube demonstrated, that could be taken to excess. As with the Apple III twenty years prior, Jobs insisted the Cube have no cooling fan. While a beautiful design, the Cube was underpowered, expensive, and prone to overheating.
Jobs reluctantly put it "on ice" just one year after it launched.
Apple Flop No. 5: ROKR (2005)
Before the iPhone there was the ROKR. But Motorola's phone was deemed unexciting. The phones held a mere 100 songs, transfers between computer-and-device were slow, and they could not download over the cellular network.
While the ROKR was a flop, it probably galvanized the need for a truly revolutionary smartphone in Jobs' mind. Two years later he pulled it off.
Apple Flop No. 6: Music Subscriptions (2001-2011)
Ever since the debut of the first iPod, Jobs derided music subscription services.
"People want to own their music," he often said. With subscriptions, the music goes away when you stop paying. Jobs was right about some people - especially older generations - but others preferred the subscription model as a way of getting access to more music for less.
It's hard to say if Jobs would eventually have seen the value in offering both options. His successor, Tim Cook, ultimately made the leap in May when he bought Beats Electronics. Beats finally brought a music subscription service (in addition to iconic headphones).
Apple Flop No.7: Mobile Screen Sizes (2007-2011)
Jobs' steadfast belief in his own aesthetic savvy also prevented Apple from making the iPhone screen any larger than 4 inches. Jobs believed that a phone any larger could not be operated with one hand. He had a point, but many users are willing to make that sacrifice to get the benefits of a larger screen.
Finally in the fall of 2014, Apple released two larger iPhone 6 models. The company sold a record-setting 10 million phones during the first weekend they were available (Sept. 19 weekend). In the quarter of their debut, AAPL reported it sold 39.3 million iPhones in the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2014.
Stay tuned to MoneyMorning.com for coverage of Apple earnings after market close on Jan. 27.
And watch Money Morning Defense & Tech Specialist Michael A. Robinson - who has followed tech markets for more than 30 years - in his recent interview on FOX Business' "Varney & Co." That's where Robinson told viewers how to play Apple stock in 2015...