What's the WORST Apple product? (Past or Present)

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450

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Everyone always talks about how Apple products are well engineered, so I wanted to find out which products people here think are amongst the worst.

Present: AirPort Extreme

Past: OS 9.x - Windows 9x was far better than OS 9.x IMO.
 
The hockey puck mouse was awful. To be honest I haven't liked any of their mice (that I've tried), but I'll admit I have only used a few different ones.
 
The single mouse button, I still can't stand not having a right click. But it's gotten better now that you can use two fingers to click for a right click. The track pad though is legit I really like it.

I'll agree the airport extreme is pretty bad. For some reason if you go in our basement it will constantly tell you the password is wrong on the wifi but go up one floor and its fine, and signal is 2 bars in the basement too.
 
iPhone 4, I keep dropping/missing calls. It's not usable without a bumper, really poor design
 
Pretty much everything they've ever released. While innovative design-wise, their execution sucks ass....and their prices are just ridiculous... I can buy a laptop with the same specs for about 1/2 the price. Oh and do they really need to make 90% profit on an iPad? The job must be good... since their staff at foxconn would rather jump than build their crap products for peanuts...

Can't stand the products or the company..I wish there was one "worst" product. lol.
 
dnottis said:
Pretty much everything they've ever released. While innovative design-wise, their execution sucks ass....and their prices are just ridiculous... I can buy a laptop with the same specs for about 1/2 the price. Oh and do they really need to make 90% profit on an iPad? The job must be good... since their staff at foxconn would rather jump than build their crap products for peanuts...

Can't stand the products or the company..I wish there was one "worst" product. lol.
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LOOK OUT GUYS I THINK WE'RE GETTING TROLLED!1

The only product I have a real complaint with is the Magic Mouse, but then again it wasn't designed for gaming... It's slightly uncomfortable as well, due to it's low profile. I find the Mighty Mouse more comfortable to use for long periods of time.
 
Every mouse they've ever made. All just total crap. I threw a might mouse across the room once, it's such shit.
 
450 said:
Everyone always talks about how Apple products are well engineered, so I wanted to find out which products people here think are amongst the worst.

Present: AirPort Extreme

Past: OS 9.x - Windows 9x was far better than OS 9.x IMO.
Click to expand...

Airport Extreme is one of the best AP/routers you can buy and has been for a while. The new revision is even better. Fast. Great coverage. And works well in areas with a lot of other traffic in the air. Why do you say it's bad?
 
dnottis said:
Pretty much everything they've ever released. While innovative design-wise, their execution sucks ass....and their prices are just ridiculous... I can buy a laptop with the same specs for about 1/2 the price. Oh and do they really need to make 90% profit on an iPad? The job must be good... since their staff at foxconn would rather jump than build their crap products for peanuts...

Can't stand the products or the company..I wish there was one "worst" product. lol.
Click to expand...

Is that why no PC manufacturer can compete with the MacBook Air on price? Or why everyone is undercutting the iPad on price and features? Oh...they aren't. ;) BTW: FoxConn makes most of the electronics you own.

If that's how you feel why even click on this forum?
 
LithiumRage158 said:
LOOK OUT GUYS I THINK WE'RE GETTING TROLLED!1

The only product I have a real complaint with is the Magic Mouse, but then again it wasn't designed for gaming... It's slightly uncomfortable as well, due to it's low profile. I find the Mighty Mouse more comfortable to use for long periods of time.
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Not trolled... I was in pre-press for about 10 years and had to deal with macintosh computers day in and day out. I've still own an iPod, it's the only Apple product I managed to keep that didn't die / fail / piss me off enough to break. iPhone ... android pretty much did that in... iPad was just too overpriced to justify a purchase. Hack a nook color for $180 :rolleyes:

The problem with mac fans is that they are loyal and buy everything apple sells. So anyone that doesn't worship them is a troll to you folks. Not true... we are just not sold on the shiny glimmer that covers their junk.
 
I bet you also go to the BMW dealership and complain they cost more than a Hyundai too, don't ya? :)

I was a Windows SE for a long time..there is a reason I use OSX too. Saying anyone that doesn't agree with Apple fans is trolling is a stretch. You're the the one that came in with the "Everything they make sucks." attitude when the market has obviously shown that isn't the case. Maybe "Cheapest" and "Feature Checklists" aren't what most people use for buying criteria...things like usability, construction, functionality, support, etc rank up there too.
 
NetJunkie said:
I bet you also go to the BMW dealership and complain they cost more than a Hyundai too, don't ya? :)

I was a Windows SE for a long time..there is a reason I use OSX too. Saying anyone that doesn't agree with Apple fans is trolling is a stretch. You're the the one that came in with the "Everything they make sucks." attitude when the market has obviously shown that isn't the case. Maybe "Cheapest" and "Feature Checklists" aren't what most people use for buying criteria...things like usability, construction, functionality, support, etc rank up there too.
Click to expand...

When a company sells their systems with their OS and it has specs that are the same or worse than a PC or Laptop that costs 1/2 as much (retail prices), then there is something wrong.

Sure MACs look "cool", but they are a huge pain to work on for the most part.

Also, OS settings and tools that are where you would expect them to be are hidden and/or do not even have any shortcuts... the file system checker being one of them.

I've had to deal with both PCs and MACs.. and MACs just don't cut it.

Neither does any of their devices that use iTunes. The file organization is a huge joke... sure it looks O.k. to the end user, but if you dig a little deeper it is a huge mess (unless they have changed it in a recent version).

The mice are a huge freaking joke... one button.. still (besides the might mouse).

PCs have had way better mice since... oh.. the late 80s at least.

The worst Apple product ever.. most definitely the Apple Macintosh... and the worst accessory for it was the external hard drive that they sold for it.

We had one of those at our school and it was the worst piece of CRAP ever. It would always lock up... the external hard drive would dissapear for no reason. I hated that thing.

http://oldcomputers.net/macintosh.html

Ohh.. I almost forgot about the iMAC... that was another huge pile of poo... lockups and erasing ZIP disks and having a lab of 20 of those with only about 5 or 6 working at any one time... OOOHHHHH.. makes me angry just thinking about it.
 
cyclone3d said:
Ohh.. I almost forgot about the iMAC... that was another huge pile of poo... lockups and erasing ZIP disks and having a lab of 20 of those with only about 5 or 6 working at any one time... OOOHHHHH.. makes me angry just thinking about it.
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At least it had a handle on the top. I could chuck that thing half a mile when it finally bit the dust. I remember when I finally got to toss it in the dumpster too, the handle was most useful for that... after all the problems that thing caused it was one of the better memories I have from that job.

That was their 'best' invention - the handle on the top of the iMac so you could throw it further.
 
Here's my top three:

1) Hockey puck mouse. Still don't know how that got past ergonomic testing (if there was any).

2) First-gen MacBook Air. It's clear now that it was an experiment that has reaped great rewards, but its first iteration was was dog-slow (it used the same HDD as the iPod, I believe).

3) Buttonless iPod nano. Looks like a stick of Trident, and was just about as functional.
 
Though this post has already devolved into "ATTACK OF THE TROLLS", I'll give an honest answer or two.


Completely agree with the hockey-puck mouse, OMG that thing was terrible.

I actually love the ergonomics of the Magic Mouse, but I will admit it's a fingertip mouse versus a palm mouse. I've just always been a fingertip mouse guy.

I'll add, for an odd, and very specific reason, the Mac Pro. Not because there was anything wrong with it persay, but because my advisor bought 3 of the damn things for the lab when there was exactly ZERO reason to have anything more then iMac's. Combine that with not really having a lot of desk space, and the very efficient space-heater effect, made the lab quite a bit more uncomfortable to work in until I was able to convince her to finally phase them out.

The lab was so much nicer, quieter, and more comfortable with 3 iMac's then 3 Mac Pro's! ;)
 
Hockey puck mouse = #1
I'll shoehorn the keyboard at the time also which had tiny arrow keys, I hated that also.

Never used a Pippin or Newton but since both of those failed, I'll say they get honorable mentions.
 
NetJunkie said:
Airport Extreme is one of the best AP/routers you can buy and has been for a while. The new revision is even better. Fast. Great coverage. And works well in areas with a lot of other traffic in the air. Why do you say it's bad?
Click to expand...

Its price it's the major downfall. Considering the Cisco Linksys E4200 is on sale at Best Buy for 134 (this being the much better/more capable 3x3 mimo router) compared to the 180 the apple store is asking for the Airport Extreme.
 
I actually like the airport extreme (my roomate uses one for our home network). Very painless to setup, use, update and secure. Port forwarding is also extremely simple


the worst (old) probably had to be the newton. The worst (new) product had to of been the old imacs (I believe that's what they were called, the colored plastic CRT all in ones). Every damn time I'd use one in college, I'd get the spinning wheel of death.

So damn annoying.
 
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martinmsj said:
Its price it's the major downfall. Considering the Cisco Linksys E4200 is on sale at Best Buy for 134 (this being the much better/more capable 3x3 mimo router) compared to the 180 the apple store is asking for the Airport Extreme.
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I've gone through enough Linksys that I don't bother anymore. They just don't seem to last. My AEBS has been solid..and really, $47? I'll pay that to get something reliable. Though I did almost grab an E4200 for $105 the other day to play with. Linksys had a bunch of refurbs. Also, if you have Macs you can easily throw a drive on that AEBS for Time Machine. Not as much "hacking" as other methods.
 
I can't believe this thread has gotten two pages in without anyone mentioning the Performa/Quadra 600-series. Sweet tap-dancing baby Jesus those things were awful. 68LC040 + IDE Disk = EPIC FAIL, even by the standards of the day.

Worst.
Machine.
Evar.

A close second was the 20th Anniversary Mac, though they appear to have become somewhat collectable now for some bizarre reason. Runner-up 'winner' is the puck mouse.

Current worst product: Magic Mouse, hands down, and 'nuff said by others. Second place goes to iPod Classic, not because there's anything wrong with the hardware, but because it's mostly obsolete. Either put a small touch screen on it and make it capable of running apps, or put it out to pasture IMO. Runner up: Mac Pro. Despite being a brilliantly-built machine, it's just plain too expensive. I have a 2008 Mac Pro that I adore, but it just doesn't seem to be the way forward for Apple. It would break my heart - but fail to surprise me - if the upcoming refresh is the Mac Pro's last hurrah.
 
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Definitely Newton.
However, the cube was also pretty bad. It was beautiful and the fanless design was cool, but it was also pointless, expensive, and many overheated. I think they only sold them for 2 years.

Also any mac laptop made out of acrylic (macbook g3). Terrible material for a laptop, its thick, cracked, and didn't make it lighter.
 
Its amazing how if someone likes an Apple product, they are automatically apple fanboys who worship Steve Jobs and will "buy anything Apple releases"

Im a huge fan of the Apple notebooks, and the new iMacs are a fantastic bang for the buck considering you get an absolutely brilliant built in LCD display.

Apple got it right in the Mobile market (minus the ip4) and just needs to work a bit more on making their desktops worth the price you pay. My 2 cents.

Anyways I'd say their worst invention thus far was the eMac. Had it, hated it. LoL, went through 2 of them. But, it did last longer than any Dell I would have purchased in the day. =P
 
martinmsj said:
Its price it's the major downfall. Considering the Cisco Linksys E4200 is on sale at Best Buy for 134 (this being the much better/more capable 3x3 mimo router) compared to the 180 the apple store is asking for the Airport Extreme.
Click to expand...

My linksys' have a tendency to hang after a few days of use. Goggling around tells me it's a pretty common problem among their routers. Yes it is cheaper than the Airport Extreme and on paper it is a better deal. My order for the 5th gen airport extreme can't come soon enough.
 
Trolls aren't even pretending not to be trolls. Referencing decades-old hardware and comparing spec-for-spec pick and choosing which spec to compare? Yawn.

Some of those Apple mice have really sucked.
 
Apple is great at design and picking a minimal feature set, then making it very usable as long as you do exactly what Apple wants. But lets not pretend they are special or that they have good engineering - MacBooks use the exact same oem parts as every pc packed into a case with less engineering than their competitors - that's why they overheat and have so many issues. Things like Unibody which Apple like to hype have no advantage over other laptop designs as has been shown in any rigidity or functional test. The battery life is better due to optimized OSX drivers, not the hardware.

Its amazing and impressive how Apple can command a huge markup due to their marketing and captive fanbase. And its all due to 2 things - make your products desirable (make it shiny, make it $$$, cheap stuff is not desirable), and remove choice (i.e. make it simple). You gotta admire Jobs for that.
 
wishi said:
My linksys' have a tendency to hang after a few days of use. Goggling around tells me it's a pretty common problem among their routers. Yes it is cheaper than the Airport Extreme and on paper it is a better deal. My order for the 5th gen airport extreme can't come soon enough.
Click to expand...


Honestly on the internet you can find just about anything seems common. Not to be a jerk or start a flame war just saying your metric isn't really one to generalize on. Although it would be enough for me to try a different brand. I haven't had an issue with the previous Cisco Linksys (old wireless when it use to be just Linksys) and it is too early for the new one.
I was wanting to actually get the new Airport Extreme to go with pair of macs at home (2 macbook pros, 1 pc desktop, two pc notebooks between all of us) just to try it, I just can't. Especially after reading Anandtech's review where they compare to the Linksys E4200.

As far as internals go, both the routers are based on broadcoms chipset. Not crapping on the ApEx though I do have an issue with the 3 ports and it's 50 usd more than the E4200. (I need all 4.)
 
MrCrispy said:
Apple is great at design and picking a minimal feature set, then making it very usable as long as you do exactly what Apple wants. But lets not pretend they are special or that they have good engineering - MacBooks use the exact same oem parts as every pc packed into a case with less engineering than their competitors - that's why they overheat and have so many issues. Things like Unibody which Apple like to hype have no advantage over other laptop designs as has been shown in any rigidity or functional test. The battery life is better due to optimized OSX drivers, not the hardware.

Its amazing and impressive how Apple can command a huge markup due to their marketing and captive fanbase. And its all due to 2 things - make your products desirable (make it shiny, make it $$$, cheap stuff is not desirable), and remove choice (i.e. make it simple). You gotta admire Jobs for that.
Click to expand...

The things you say make Apple successful should be pretty easy to copy. Up until this year, most technology companies were worth way more than Apple. How do you suppose nobody copied their model for success? Simply making something shiny and expensive is pretty easy, add a little marketing (surprised you didn't mention that) and you have a hit. Keep in mind, Apple's competitors are all multibillion dollar corporations with enormous marketing and engineering budgets. Because Apple is "good at marketing" doesn't mean everyone else has to suck.


And Apple being no better than anyone else at engineering, you know not of what you speak. I know you dislike Apple, but pick the right battles at least. Apple is massively successful, and if it was as easy as you make it sound, everyone else wouldn't be so far behind.
 
To add to the airport debate, yes out of the box they are some of the best off the shelf access points on the market.

However, if I buy just about any linksys device or say an Asus R-N12 and put DD-WRT on it, I will end up having a much better, and more feature rich device.

Worst product: Every mouse ever, and every laptop case design from the iBook G3 (Non clam shell) to the pre-unibody Macbook pro (not including the polycarb macbook). Trying to replace a hard drive on those was like performing brain surgery. For a mouse, I think that apple tries to reinvent the wheel too much. They want to remain different and therefore have different designs, however they completely disregard function or ergonomics in favor of looking different. Most desktop Mac owners I know have all ditched their apple magic, mighty, superduper etc mouse for a standard logitech or microsoft mouse. Close second was the G3 iMacs. Upgrades? What upgrades? The thing was about as difficult to take apart as an iBook G4. They were terribly under powered for what they were designed to do, and had some of the worst CRTs. The eMac wasn't much of a step up. As Hunter Crestle reminds us "Whats the handle on it for? So that I can attach a chain to it and use as a $&!*#(* BOAT ANCHOR!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqN76gYKHMs Mac or PC you will enjoy that.

Best Product: Unibody Macbooks. Absolutely a dream to work on, and easily the best laptop to replace parts in of any laptop I have ever worked with. A close second would be the anti smudge coating they put on their touch screens. Looking at my iPhone after a day of use vs my Acer Iconia A500 tablet, and it is quite obvious the difference.

I will say that I wish that their pro line of products were more attractively priced.
 
I don't like any of their input devices. I carry all kinds of crap with my laptop to avoid using the touchpad--they want me to use a giant one to control my desktop? Really? I can't think of anything more ergonomically terrible than that. Their cramped micro keyboards are bad for the same reason. It's one thing to make tradeoffs to make desktop hardware look cool. I would never trade off ergonomics for style, though.
 
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I'd have to say their mice, and I'd also like to say dnottis and cyclone3d have no idea what they are talking about. To compare a Nook to an iPad and say it's cheaper is just straight up retarded. They are two completely different products. And to think that "pc mice" only work with PCs is the epitome of ignorance when it comes to tech.
 
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santaliqueur said:
The things you say make Apple successful should be pretty easy to copy. Up until this year, most technology companies were worth way more than Apple. How do you suppose nobody copied their model for success? Simply making something shiny and expensive is pretty easy, add a little marketing (surprised you didn't mention that) and you have a hit. Keep in mind, Apple's competitors are all multibillion dollar corporations with enormous marketing and engineering budgets. Because Apple is "good at marketing" doesn't mean everyone else has to suck.


And Apple being no better than anyone else at engineering, you know not of what you speak. I know you dislike Apple, but pick the right battles at least. Apple is massively successful, and if it was as easy as you make it sound, everyone else wouldn't be so far behind.
Click to expand...

I may have oversimplified, but Apple puts design over everything else, they are the very definition of form over function. Jobs is on record with this and is famous for insisting on a particular design no matter what the engineering compromises.

Other companies can't copy Apple's formula due to a no. of reasons - they compete in multiple segments, not just the high end. They don't have the luxury of owning the entire ecosystem (hw + sw) and ignoring backwards compatibility. They sell to enterprises and not just end users. And there's no point trying to out-Apple Apple, so they differentiate their products with better tech specs and features. WP7 is a good example of Microsoft trying the iPhone formula - minimal features and choice compared to WimMob, and a consistent design language.

Its easy to have better tech specs, its much harder to compete against intangibles like brand image.
 
santaliqueur said:
And Apple being no better than anyone else at engineering, you know not of what you speak. I know you dislike Apple, but pick the right battles at least. Apple is massively successful, and if it was as easy as you make it sound, everyone else wouldn't be so far behind.
Click to expand...

It's not Apple's "engineering" that makes them more successful, it's their marketing. Yes, much of Apple's hardware is very much stylized and appealing, but more-often than not many of the designs have been driven by Apple's marketing goals (i.e. reaching a certain thinness, giving it a certain look, etc.), and while there are times where that succeeds very much wildly (the iPhone in general, the MBPs, etc)., at other times it can fail them (such as all the heat-related failures in the MacBooks, or the iPhone 4's antenna issue, for example).

Also, other companies have released stylish equipment both before and after similar Apple products have come out, but typically to less fan-fare. Why? Because in modern society, Apple leads the way in most people's eyes, so no matter what another company releases, that company will be second-rate to the general public. That's marketing, plain and simple.

Edit - With regards to the original topic, my list would probably be:

1. Puck mouse. I keep one on my desk for nostalgia, but wow is it still horrible to use.
2. The G5 iMacs. Overheating issues galore (though I did like the design style it heralded in).
3. Original-design Time Capsules and AppleTV. Several friends went through quite a few of them, and had so many issues with heating that some even resorted to cutting out parts of the chassis in order to install 120mm fans.

A lot of people seem to put the Newton down, but the Newton wasn't a bad product, it simply was before it's time.

Edit 2 - Oh, and in response to comments about why other companies can't simply "duplicate" what Apple has done, there's a good reason for that - Apple will likely sue them. Look at the current issues where Apple is suing Samsung over the Galaxy line's similar-appearing UI. The interface simply arranges icons in a similar pattern to iOS, and Apple went after them. Or, for those who can remember further back, eMachines' eOne, which basically copied the iMac's approach of an all-in-one PC with a CRT, only running Windows. Apple sued them and eMachines took them off the market after only a few months. So yeah, companies try other approaches, as MrCrispy pointed out, but ultimately most consumers simply want that device with an Apple logo on it. Not that it's necessarily a bad (or good) thing.
 
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MrCrispy said:
Other companies can't copy Apple's formula due to a no. of reasons - they compete in multiple segments, not just the high end. They don't have the luxury of owning the entire ecosystem (hw + sw) and ignoring backwards compatibility.

Its easy to have better tech specs, its much harder to compete against intangibles like brand image.
Click to expand...

Did they just happen to get lucky to win the ecosystem in a lottery, or did they carefully and methodically build it over many years? You make it sound like Apple didn't earn it. Surely you don't mean that, right?

It is very difficult to compete against brand image for sure, but when you are also competing against excellent products, it's even more difficult. Competitors are having trouble producing devices that are as thin, cheap, and efficient as Apple. The brand loyalty comes AFTER years of satisfying customers with excellent computing experiences. So many people are unable to grasp this.

I'll buy anything from Apple, not because I am some blind sheep worshipping in the Church of Jobs. I buy Apple products because they have consistently exceeded my expectations of computers and operating systems and mobile devices, and I expect that to continue.

But call me a fanboy if it makes it easier for you to understand.
 
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