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50 years of Apple
We’re celebrating Apple’s fiftieth birthday with per week of content material in regards to the tech big. It covers every thing from private recollections from our writers to the best — and worst — Apple devices as voted by you, and you may learn all of it on our 50 years of Apple web page.
Apple is celebrating its 50 birthday in a number of days on April 1 — however as everyone knows, it is not all been easy crusing during the last half century.
From suede-like telephone instances to bin-like computer systems and not-so-magic mice, Apple has stumbled a variety of occasions in its lengthy historical past. We picked out a few of the greatest {hardware} flops from the corporate, however we wished to let you might have your say — so this rating of the highest 11 worst Apple devices relies in your votes (from a ballot on the TechRadar WhatsApp channel).
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Take a second to contemplate: what is the worst product Apple has ever made in your opinion? Then learn on to see the decision from TechRadar readers, which, we have to say, we absolutely agree with in the case of the principle offender.
We’ll undergo the rankings in reverse order, from quantity 11 right down to the highest spot. Also, notice that we’ve got a ballot working for one of the best Apple devices ever if you wish to rejoice its extra profitable makes an attempt at innovation — and please do tell us within the feedback under if we have missed any notable clangers…
11. ‘Trash Can’ Mac Pro (2013)
- What they stated in 2013: “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass” (Apple’s Phil Schiller at WWDC 2013)
Apple thought of all kinds of nuances with the design of the Mac Pro that arrived in 2013. This pro-targeted laptop was manner extra compact than its predecessor, a lot lighter, and but packed a complete heap of efficiency, with a nifty cooling setup to make sure it ran commendably (even spookily) quietly.
There was only one small element Apple missed, and this was that the redesigned Mac Pro regarded like a wastepaper bin. Not a bit like a bin – a lot like one, and so the system was informally often known as the ‘Trash Can’ Mac. Doubtless that is not a nickname Apple was notably happy to see hooked up to its high-powered, shiny new piece of very costly {hardware}.
The Mac Pro was truly a fantastic laptop – we called it a “masterpiece of engineering” in our review at the time, in fact, with a whole list of triumphs and positive facets to its credit. And doubtless that’s why it’s at the bottom of this list with the fewest votes (barely more than 1%).
Even so, the shrunk-down Trash Can had issues aside from its bin-like appearance, particularly around the space inside – or lack of it – and the fact that expansion was achieved via external devices, not internal hardware upgrades, as a result.
10. Siri Remote for Apple TV (2015)
- What we said: “It’s probably my most frequently lost object” (TechRadar)
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The first-gen Siri Remote wasn’t a bad product in fairness — not at all. The Siri voice control itself actually had some pretty nifty features, especially considering when this was released, a long time ago now.
However, this initial take on the Siri Remote did have some notable flaws. One of those was that the glass trackpad surface could easily break if the remote was dropped on a hard surface. On top of that, many folks complained that this trackpad was very fiddly to use and frustratingly oversensitive — plus it was difficult to know if you were holding the remote the right way up in a darkened room.
If you wanted to buy the Siri Remote standalone, it was a very pricey affair, too (though the asking price came down somewhat with a revised edition in 2017 alongside the Apple TV 4K). Still, while it certainly had issues, the relative lack of votes for this one mean that the first-gen Siri Remote isn’t one of the bigger Apple howlers in our list.
9. iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen (2009)
- What we said: “A real low-point for the device” (TechRadar)
The iPod Shuffle Third Gen got here with a startling innovation — it had no buttons! Not on the system, anyway, because the controls for playback and skipping tracks have been moved from the physique of the gadget to be in-line on the cable of the earbuds.
This meant the iPod Shuffle might be smaller and extra minimalist – and lighter, too, certainly it resembled a cigarette lighter – however the brand new earbud-based controls have been a really messy manner of working, to say the least. The Third Gen mannequin was criticized for being severely unintuitive for navigating your music assortment, plus third-party earbuds have been problematic and infrequently did not work (so that you simply needed to hearken to your music play straight by, with no skip or different controls).
This mannequin did introduce VoiceOver – spoken monitor data, which sounds pedestrian now, however was a neat contact again on the time – however total, the Third-generation iPod Shuffle was considered a flop attributable to Apple’s ill-thought-out button design. The next-gen mannequin was warmly welcomed when it introduced again the controls onto the physique of the iPod with a wheel for navigation, which tells you all you should know right here.
8. Apple III (1980)
- What they stated: “A complete disaster” (Ed Smith, Apple dealership supervisor and laptop pioneer within the Nineteen Eighties)
With this one, we’re going manner again to 1980, and Apple’s try and make a PC for the enterprise world. The Apple III regarded the half – which is to say it was a hulking all-in-one with built-in CRT monitor perched atop the system – but it surely was severely flawed.
In reality, the primary 14,000 Apple III computer systems that have been shipped have been faulty, reportedly suffering from “chips [that] had the nasty habit of popping out of their sockets” and rumored issues with stated chips truly ‘melting’ contained in the (overly toasty) chassis. This led to a full recall of these PCs, and the halting of manufacturing. Although a hard and fast and revamped mannequin was later launched, it was too little, too late.
This was an unmitigated catastrophe, basically, and rumor additionally has it (via Reddit) that tech assist recommendation for an Apple III that had gone wonky again within the day was to ‘carry the machine three inches and drop it with a view to reseat the chips on the logic board’ (often known as impression upkeep).
7. Apple Newton (1993)
- What they stated: “Either terribly innacurate or terribly slow — in whichever case, it was simply… terrible” (Paleotronic)
The Newton MessagePad was an early tackle the PDA or private digital assistant. Apple’s Newton was a touchscreen notepad plus stylus with which you might jot down ideas or notes, and it used handwriting recognition to decipher your scribblings.
The bother was, as The Simpsons memorably made clear within the dig under, the handwriting recognition was poor, which made utilizing the factor lower than very best.
The Newton was an thought forward of its time, and Apple genuinely deserves credit score for what it tried to do right here. However, the top end result was too flaky, and it was additionally exorbitantly costly, with the bottom mannequin costing $699 at launch, a complete lot of money within the early nineties (now round $1,500, adjusted for inflation). And it was much more for those who wished a few of the mandatory extras for the PDA.
6. iPhone 5C (2013)
- What we stated in 2013: ‘Not way more than 2012’s system shoved in a plastic case”
This was the primary ‘reasonably priced’ iPhone and it arrived in 2013, however the air quotes are in place there as a result of the difficulty with the iPhone 5C was that Apple did not get the value proper. Which was a little bit of a essential mistake, frankly.
As we identified in our evaluation on the time, the iPhone 5C was principally the 2012 iPhone 5 “shoved in a plastic case”. But crucially, the cheaper price tag was only $100 less than its premium sibling, the iPhone 5S.
So, why would you save a relatively small amount of cash to buy a less powerful smartphone with a plastic (polycarbonate) body? Many people wouldn’t, although that said, a lot of folks still ended up buying the device — but not nearly as many as Apple expected (in terms of the ratio to iPhone 5S sales).
The bizarre switch to a paltry 8GB of storage with the iPhone 5C in 2014, when the iPhone 6S arrived, compounded the failures here. This was because while the price was dropped further with the iPhone 5C 8GB (and with the 5S too), it still didn’t look good value — and 8GB simply wasn’t enough space on a contemporary phone.
The iPhone 5C represented a series of misjudgements from Apple, and a rather floundering initial effort at a budget phone.
5. ‘Hockey puck’ mouse (1998)
- What we said: “It made pointing and clicking about as much fun as typing on a keyboard covered with needles” (TechRadar)
The Apple USB Mouse which arrived in 1998 with the new iMac at the time was very different. It was nicknamed the ‘hockey puck’ mouse due to its uncanny resemblance to said puck.
Presumably this radical puck design was a result of Apple thinking to itself that conventional mouse designs were nonsense. Who needs an elongated pointing peripheral when you can have a circular one? With all those circular benefits. Like… erm… it not being able to fit in your hand very well? And having the mousing ergonomics of a brick (albeit a circular brick). The button was rubbish, too, and the cord too short.
Did Apple get anything right here? No, in short (though weirdly, the hockey puck does have its fans, and each to their own, of course — it’s definitely a unique invention). The USB Mouse was small, impractical, clumsy, and didn’t last long — the hockey puck disappeared from Apple’s line-up two years after it was introduced.
4. FineWoven iPhone Case (2023)
- What we said in 2023: “Not a total disaster, just a very big one”
The FineWoven case for the iPhone was a fine (ahem) idea, in theory. At least from an eco-friendly and sustainable perspective, replacing leather cases with a high-end “durable microtwill” that’s “suede-like” was a commendable move by Apple. But in terms of the practicality of the invention – that wasn’t so hot.
The FineWoven case arrived with the iPhone 15 in 2023 and as we and everyone else quickly discovered, that material on the back was easily scratched or marked. Before long, a FineWoven case inevitably started to look tattered, which sort of defeated the ‘luxury’ pitch from Apple. It’s wasn’t just that, but the case also had an unpleasant clammy kind of feel in the hand, which wasn’t good.
These aspects of wear-and-tear and off-putting texture are where the FineWoven case really fell down, and it’s a shame, because we can appreciate what Apple was trying to do here. Hampered by these prominent design fails, the FineWoven iPhone cases were discontinued a year after they were first revealed.
3. Magic Mouse 2nd Gen (2015)
- What we said: “This design choice has baffled me and pretty much every Mac owner for years”
Apple’s second-generation Magic Mouse pitched up in 2015. It was lighter, packed a built-in battery, and was smartly designed — in all but one aspect. And that major failing with this peripheral was the positioning of the charging port.
In an infinitely wise stroke of design – one that has earned the mouse third place in this list, with 8% of your vote – Apple decided to place the charging (Lightning) connector on the underside of the Magic Mouse.
What’s the big deal with that? Well, it’s inconvenient because, obviously enough, the mouse can’t be used while charging. If it’s being charged, the Magic Mouse is reduced to the status of an ornament, seeing as the cable being plugged in rather gets in the way of normal operation.
Apple didn’t even change this port placement with the more recent refresh of the Magic Mouse which finally brought in a USB-C port rather than Lightning. It remains a mystifying design nuance even today, though presumably Apple prefers it this way to keep the lines of the mouse looking neater and cleaner. Very much form over function, then, which is territory that Apple isn’t wholly unfamiliar with.
2. Apple Vision Pro (2024)
It’s unsurprising that the Vision Pro headset ranks so highly in this list of Apple’s worst gadgets, because it was previously a star performer in our list of the biggest tech fails of 2024, where it took the number one spot. This time, it fell short at number two, capturing 14% of your vote.
What held true back then still holds true now. While we actually really liked the Vision Pro in our review two years ago, we acknowledged that there was clearly a problem with the mixed-reality headset: its price tag.
The gadget launched at $3,499 in the US (and at £3,499 / AU$5,999 when it arrived globally), so no matter how good it was in many ways, this proved to be a critical stumbling block. It meant the technically impressive headset was depressingly out of reach of the majority of tech fans.
It was also overly heavy, so lacked in the comfort stakes, and the apps were somewhat buggy, which didn’t help matters. A lack of apps or available content in those early days didn’t help, either, and distinctly lackluster sales sealed the fate of the Vision Pro v1, with production lines grinding abruptly to a halt.
Granted, matters improved with the refreshed version built around the M5 chip, while the apps and content support is certainly better now — but a fully-fledged sequel is now doubtful, with an apparent pivot to smart glasses in the works.
1. $700 Mac Pro Wheels Kit (2020)
- What we said in 2020: “Apple’s pricing strategy for these is baffling”
Of everything that Apple has ever made, this is the worst of the worst as voted by the majority (56%) of you in our poll: a set of wheels that costs as much as the average PC (well, before the RAM crisis kicked in, anyway).
The Mac Pro for 2019 was launched at the very end of the year, and the Wheels Kit followed in April 2020. For an outlay of $699 in the US, you received four wheels to go on the Mac Pro to make it more mobile.
Of course, you didn’t just get the wheels – oh no – Apple also bundled some extra goodies, as you might expect. Namely a 1/4-inch to 4mm hex bit tool to fit them to the computer, and an installation guide to ensure that the process went without a hitch. Oh, and the wheels were fashioned from stainless steel, let’s not forget that. Stainless steel, as shiny and polished as a fine Valyrian sword.
So, what more could you want? What’s that, you say: a locking mechanism for said wheels so that when you’ve scooted your Mac Pro into its new operating position, you can rest safe in the knowledge that it won’t roll away? Well, no, you didn’t get that.
Apple did, however, offer an add-on pack of eight miniature stainless steel bricks you could strategically position wedged against both sides of each wheel, an innovative anti-roll solution provided for only an extra $199. (Just to be clear, Apple didn’t do this — but we have, at this point, got stuck in ‘sarcasm mode’).
Frankly, this ‘wheely’ bad decision from Apple will surely go down in the annals of tech history as an example of one of the worst-value products ever made. The wheels were overpriced, underperforming (brakeless), and a perfect example of corporate greed run riot (with equally no-brakes-in-sight).
Funnily enough, just as we were finishing writing this article, Apple decided to discontinue the wheels (and the Mac Pro itself). It’s almost as if Tim Cook caught wind of this poll somehow…
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This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
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