The worst Apple designs, ever.

[dpaanlka]

I also happen to revolt how short the cable of the white keyboard is. I have a sliding tray and it's not long enough to loop around and have enough for when I slide it out. And it's pretty easy to get dirt inside it.

Your Mac, if you bought it new, comes with a USB extender.

It just so happens I don't have one.

You must not have looked very hard through your box.

For the absolute worst design I would say it would have to be the Macintosh XL, that's tied with the Puck mouse.

Well, it technically wasn't even a Macintosh.

This Apple mouse, used to give me a sore hand.

I love that mouse. I have a few and still use them.

Have to say I love the mighty mouse when it works properly, which, unfortunately, is hardly ever at all . Have to agree with others and say the MM is a bit of a dog , producing interesting results, although a great idea.

I had an early Might Mouse which displayed the typical problems. But my later model that replaced it has been perfectly fine.

The Performas. Ugly little buggers. Had a 6116CD, and it was just ugly. All those flat, rectangular ones. Ugh.

There were soooo many performas with soooo many case designs. I personally like the 6400/6500 case style.

The Mac Portable was pretty poor design - not least because it weighed a tonne. That said I still have one under my bed for posterity. Was my first ever Mac back in 1990.

Agreed.

All in ones and the crippling that came with them and the lost marketshare that followed through the years. Whats the point of a Mac that has to run Windows? Apple should have been doing things to expand Mac marketshare the past 10 years, instead they were looking at short term Profit like many American companys. Then they scratch their head years later and wonder why? GM & Ford come to mind.

This was a weird rant. But all in ones didn't just "appear" and kill of the Mac market share - the first Mac was an all in one and there has never not been an all in one in the product line. But don't forget, you always had the choice of some sort of desktop with expansion slots - especially in the 90s when Apple was doing the worst. In 1996 you had about a dozen tower and desktop choices, from the 6400s, to the entire 7x00 line, to the top of the line 8500 and 9500s. Yes, that was the worst time in Apple's history.

Sure says a lot about your theory.

The girly flower power and dalmatian iMacs.

They made me me vomit a little blood.

Agreed.

some how I do not think apple will ever live down those POS hockey puck mice they made many years ago and I do not think they should ever be allowed to because that had to be one of the dumbest anti-apple things ever done by apple. It failed at being easy to use, it failed at even being usable. It was a piss poor apple product that went against everything apple stood for. It was not think different it was think like an idiot.

People still think the puck mouse is a current mouse.

The "Special" menu.
The colored computer case..

What was wrong with the Special menu? It sure did some special things. I don't see how that could possibly be one of Apple's "worst" designs ever.

Colored computer cases saved Apple.

hmm I have a few other horrible designs....

1. nosy imac g3 hard drives----used to drive me crazy

2. Powermac 9500 case.... you had to remove the entire motherboard to upgrade the ram

3. powerbook g3 wallstreet 12"... the screens on those things sucked!

1. A noisy hard drive isn't really a design flaw, it's just a sign of a failing hard drive.

2. Agreed, but it's been repeated so much its almost cliché now and I wonder if half the people here who are saying how bad they were actually experienced them.

3. Well, yeah it was a lousy display, but what else should Apple have done to bring down the price in the low end model.

I'd have to say the eMac, the B&W PM color scheme (come on, its a Pro machine!), the puck mouse, Flower Power & Dalmatian iMac flavors, the continuance of the one click mouse into the 2000's, the Mac Portable, and the White border around the Tibook topcase.

*takes a breath* I used to be a Hardcore PC guy, and these were some of my grievances.

Couldn't disagree more on the B&W G3 thing. Maybe you never saw one, but I think they're gorgeous. Especially the way "G3" ghosts through the side.

Everyone who says the eMac is an ugly design has no soul.

Agreed.

Am I gonna be the local That Guy who says that the 20th Anniversary Mac was one ugly beast?

Cause it was.

That's just dumb...

When you have a 1 size fits all solution you end up with 1 size that fits no one. Imac is nice but I wont ever buy another all in one, its like having your vcr or dvd built into your Tv. Seems nice at first until something breaks.

ALL in ones have Killed Macs Marketshare in my view. But what do I know its not like Steve is calling me for my opinion as IJ has implied.

Well obviously the millions of people that bought them disagree with you.

 

[®îçhå®?]

Must look really nice, next to your pyramid of beer cans and your framed magazine cover featuring pregnant Britney Spears...

Yeah because i have that. What are you on?? I appreciate good design and that was - maybe not the easiest to use but looked great.

Beer cans - no, i dont drink anything
Britney Spears?? No! Why would i care for her??

You really are in a bad mood arent you. People dont agre with you and you stap like in this thread. Stop having a go and learn to respect other people's opinions

 

[notjustjay]

I like the Cube, in theory. Mine's not functioning at 100%, unfortunately. And that touch-button for power/sleep was a bad idea -- one accidental swipe of your hand and you could be watching your computer shut down.

I had bad luck with the batch of "pizza box" Macs where the power button was right under the floppy drive. First time I saw one of those at a computer store, I said "Oh! Apple put an eject button on the floppy drive!" and pressed it. I quickly learned that it wsa not an eject button

Hated the puck mouse, too. And any Mac keyboard where the arrow keys weren't in any sort of useful configuration (i.e. all strung along in a row).

Copland. 'nuff said.

 

[dpaanlka]

And for my 3,000th post, I shall now reveal the true worst designs in Apple history:

1. PowerBook 500 Case Plastics in the Hinge Area: I have 7 of these PowerBooks, and every single one of them is falling apart in the hinge area, resulting in a very annoying "snap" sound and some really ugly LCD bezels.

2. Apple Adjustable Keyboard: These have a failure rate of about 100% - although the idea was good.

3. HDI-45 and ADC: Twice in Apple's history, Apple has attempted to make our lives easier by combining the video port with other various busses. Twice in Apple's history, this idea was roundly rejected by the buying public. HDI-45 combined Video, ADB, and Sound into one quasi-elegant cord. Unfortunately, only one display was ever made that made use of it, and it disappeared when the 6100, 7100, and 8100s were replaced. Then, in 2000 Apple tried this again. ADC combined Video, USB, and Power. Once again, only Apple displays were made for it.

While I do believe it is a good idea, both had such horrible market penetration that users of these systems (or the monitors) have to find expensive and clumsy adapters to mate them with more common counterparts. Just sad, really.

4. Power Macintosh 6400/6500 Case: While lovely looking, these made the 8500s look easy to get into. To access the hard drive, owners were told to violently rip off the front of the machine. A "breaking plastic" noise was described as normal. What were they thinking!

5. Putting 64-bit things on 32-bit Busses: Very common in the early Power Mac era, the 52xx, 53xx, 62xx and 63xx (except the 6360) all featured horrible atrocious ridiculously bad performance. This long and humorous article explains why these systems were four times slower than they should have been, and gave the excellent PowerPC 603 such a bad rap.

 

[notjustjay]

Putting 64-bit things on 32-bit Busses: Very common in the early Power Mac era,

Ah yes. Intel did the same thing with the 386SX and DX. I thought they did something with the 486, too, but I found out that chip's SX and DX designation meant something completely different (lack of FPU).

Oh, another "Apple thing that made you go hmmmm": the eMate.

 

[IJ Reilly]

And for my 3,000th post, I shall now reveal the true worst designs in Apple history:

Oh come on don't be shy, take a bow.

What about those adjustable keyboards? I still have two of them -- and don't recall having any problems with them. I only gave them up after Apple dropped ADB.

 

[dpaanlka]

Oh come on don't be shy, take a bow.

What about those adjustable keyboards? I still have two of them -- and don't recall having any problems with them. I only gave them up after Apple dropped ADB.

Their copper contacts seem to corrode quite a bit. Me and a friend of mine went through about a dozen and could not only not find one that was working, but had a hell of a time restoring one to work... which failed shortly afterwards. I've heard only bad things from other acquaintances with these as well.

They look awesome though.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Their copper contacts seem to corrode quite a bit. Me and a friend of mine went through about a dozen and could not only not find one that was working, but had a hell of a time restoring one to work... which failed shortly afterwards. I've heard only bad things from other acquaintances with these as well.

They look awesome though.

They were also great to use (assuming you avoid the problem described).

 

[Rodimus Prime]

This was a weird rant. But all in ones didn't just "appear" and kill of the Mac market share - the first Mac was an all in one and there has never not been an all in one in the product line. But don't forget, you always had the choice of some sort of desktop with expansion slots - especially in the 90s when Apple was doing the worst. In 1996 you had about a dozen tower and desktop choices, from the 6400s, to the entire 7x00 line, to the top of the line 8500 and 9500s. Yes, that was the worst time in Apple's history.

Sure says a lot about your theory.
.

I might like to point out also during that time apple made a lot of other mistakes that where killing them. it was not the choices. it was more putting that huge premium on apple product and they truly where a rip off back then for there power. Apple did a lot of other stupid crap back then that made them in such bad shape. it was not the computer set up with choices that killed them.

Also times are VERY different now and upgrades are much more common place. back then it was rare and not a lot more people do it. The upgrades are no longer just for the geeks but the people who know relatively little about computers.


So there goes you so called justification of all-in-one. I know a ton of people who think apple computers are great but refused to buy an apple desktop because to get any time real upgradability to it you have to pay out the rear for it and pay for a bunch of extra crap they do not want. I am one of them. I will never buy an apple desktop for that reason. I do not want nor do I need an Mac Pro so it is a huge waste of money there and I want to be able to do more than just upgrade the ram that I really get with an iMac and I do not like paying for a monitor considering I already have ones I like so I wasting money there and not getting what I want. (sorry replacing the hard drive with a new one is not upgrading, Now if I added a 2nd internal it is upgrading.)

 

[dpaanlka]

I know a ton of people who think apple computers are great but refused to buy an apple desktop because to get any time real upgradability to it you have to pay out the rear for it and pay for a bunch of extra crap they do not want. I am one of them.

I bet a dollar I can name more people who have Apple's laptops and/or all-in-ones than you can name who refuse to buy a Mac because there is no cheap desktop.

Not only that, you didn't really disprove anything I said. In 1996 you could buy a Performa 6360 desktop with two of your beloved PCI slots for about $1500.

 

[deputy_doofy]

I didn't like the whole Blue Dalmation/Flower Power release of the iMacs (G3's).
They were fugly (though, slightly nicer looking in person). Still, I'd never have bought one, even if specs had been through the roof.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I bet a dollar I can name more people who have Apple's laptops and/or all-in-ones than you can name who refuse to buy a Mac because there is no cheap desktop.

Not only that, you didn't really disprove anything I said.

more so I showed a lot more variables that where in place at the time span you are using counting that point. Also a lot of things have changed since that time so it really is not a valid argument because both at the time to many other things where effecting apple (more so apple massively over charging for there products) and the extra choice had hardly any effect at all. Top it off a lot of thing have changed. so your counter point is to weak to hold up.

Also what heck on the laptop crap. Read my words I said apple DESKTOP the people I was talking about most of them own apple laptops. Laptops are not meant to be upgraded so it is forgivable there but desktops are another story.

Apple iMacs are not really anything more than a glorified laptop that can not be moved. I do not know of any extra upgrades the iMac can have done to it that a laptop could not have done to it.

 

[dpaanlka]

more so I showed a lot more variables that where in place at the time span you are using counting that point. Also a lot of things have changed since that time so it really is not a valid argument because both at the time to many other things where effecting apple (more so apple massively over charging for there products) and the extra choice had hardly any effect at all. Top it off a lot of thing have changed. so your counter point is to weak to hold up.

Also what heck on the laptop crap. Read my words I said apple DESKTOP the people I was talking about most of them own apple laptops. Laptops are not meant to be upgraded so it is forgivable there but desktops are another story.

Apple iMacs are not really anything more than a glorified laptop that can not be moved. I do not know of any extra upgrades the iMac can have done to it that a laptop could not have done to it.

Ok fine... I bet a dollar I personally know more people with iMacs and eMacs than you personally know who refuse to buy a Mac because there is no cheap desktop version.

You're point isn't even a point. You just said all-in-ones killed the Mac's market share, to which I replied there have always been desktops, and even more in the past, to which you replied they were too expensive, to which I replied with an example of a $1500, double-PCI-equipped desktop you could buy in 1996, Apple's worst year, to which you replied by changing your point to something completely unrelated.

Of course... you can always buy this:

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

The market has spoken, how do you make the Best OS on the planet then make excuses for 5% marketshare? Apple's hardware is the reason and not marketing its OS. Apple has a clearly superior OS so its not the software Apple makes it something else and that is apples hardware configurations and pricing that ran off everyone. I have owned 2 all in ones, but not anymore. All in ones ran off the buyers,the developers, 3rd party hardware makers and everyone to the point of 5% of the world loves their Mac. Apple isnt running Windblows because they love Bill gates. Every Mac fan dances all around these issues. Apple needs a complete new Hardware rethink and one that grows market and doesnt chase off people. Either that or just make PCs which they are very close to doing.

 

[leekohler]

The market has spoken, how do you make the Best OS on the planet then make excuses for 5% marketshare? Apple's hardware is the reason and not marketing its OS. Apple has a clearly superior OS so its not the software Apple makes it something else and that is apples hardware configurations and pricing that ran off everyone. I have owned 2 all in ones, but not anymore. All in ones ran off the buyers,the developers, 3rd party hardware makers and everyone to the point of 5% of the world loves their Mac. Apple isnt running Windblows because they love Bill gates. Every Mac fan dances all around these issues. Apple needs a complete new Hardware rethink and one that grows market and doesnt chase off people. Either that or just make PCs which they are very close to doing.

Why does everything have to be all or nothing? Macs are an alternative to Windows. I wouldn't want them to dominate the PC market. Then we'd have viruses galore and all sorts of other bad things going on. Apple's computers are a niche market. They figured that out awhile ago and found ways to make the company extremely profitable.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The market has spoken, how do you make the Best OS on the planet then make excuses for 5% marketshare? Apple's hardware is the reason and not marketing its OS. Apple has a clearly superior OS so its not the software Apple makes it something else and that is apples hardware configurations and pricing that ran off everyone. I have owned 2 all in ones, but not anymore. All in ones ran off the buyers,the developers, 3rd party hardware makers and everyone to the point of 5% of the world loves their Mac. Apple isnt running Windblows because they love Bill gates. Every Mac fan dances all around these issues. Apple needs a complete new Hardware rethink and one that grows market and doesnt chase off people. Either that or just make PCs which they are very close to doing.

Answer: Microsoft doesn't make computers, and never has. They were lucky enough to have a computer hardware market manufactured for them, and dishonest enough to use illegal means to keep anyone but them from exploiting it.

I don't know why Apple is constantly compared to Microsoft. The way Microsoft got what it got from the computer market is completely anomalous. It's not a model for anything, and it can't be duplicated.

Apple is the fourth largest computer maker in the world. This is not a failure by any measure, and requires no excuses, in my book.

 

[Old Mac Geezer]

The entire era where you had models being introduced and phased out on an almost weekly basis was the worst time for Apple. You had a lot of ugly and way underpowered machines introduced during that time although there were some pretty good ones, too. It was almost as if Apple was emptying their obsolete parts bins by mish-moshing them all together into working (in some cases semi-working) computers. For those who don't remember, I am talking about the time from the Mac II series up through the PowerPC 601,603,604 era ending with the introduction of the beige G3 desktop/tower models. It was just too confusing sorting through all the Mac II variants and then having to deal with Performas, Centris's, Quadras, and then all the early Powermacs to find the machine that was right for what you needed, and because Macs cost more than PC's, if you chose wrong it would cost you big when you had to buy again in a few years when you outgrew the machine that you already spent thousands of dollars on. Is it any wonder a thriving upgrade market grew out of that chaos??

 

[dpaanlka]

The entire era where you had models being introduced and phased out on an almost weekly basis was the worst time for Apple. You had a lot of ugly and way underpowered machines introduced during that time although there were some pretty good ones, too. It was almost as if Apple was emptying their obsolete parts bins by mish-moshing them all together into working (in some cases semi-working) computers. For those who don't remember, I am talking about the time from the Mac II series up through the PowerPC 601,603,604 era ending with the introduction of the beige G3 desktop/tower models. It was just too confusing sorting through all the Mac II variants and then having to deal with Performas, Centris's, Quadras, and then all the early Powermacs to find the machine that was right for what you needed, and because Macs cost more than PC's, if you chose wrong it would cost you big when you had to buy again in a few years when you outgrew the machine that you already spent thousands of dollars on. Is it any wonder a thriving upgrade market grew out of that chaos??

To be honest, I find it much easier to understand and remember pretty much all of the models in that era as opposed to, say, current HP and Sony models. If you didn't know exactly what a specific model was, it was easy to figure out usually by the name. Performas and LCs always had the same names as their Quadra or Power Mac counterparts, so while there would be a Performa 6400 and a Power Mac 6400, they were the same thing.

 

[keysersoze]

PowerMac 8100/8500/9100/9500 case.

20 minutes, 10 cables and totally remove the motherboard just to upgrade RAM.

You stole mine. My 8500 was a bastard to upgrade.

 

[jayb2000]

hey those g3 all in ones were sweet! totally had a fun time with them in like 6-7th grade

Oh man, that makes me feel old.
Mine is still sitting on my desk at home.

 

[FrankBlack]

Which Mac was it that was designed in such as way that you could not upgrade the RAM without taking apart the whole thing and removing the logic board? It was one of the models from about 1996 or 1997, possibly the 9500. Of course, this was in the dark days when RAM was very expensive.

Talk about barking your knuckles...

My votes, such as they are:

the hockey puck mouse.

The G4 Cube. (Not that it was horrid, just way too expensive)

The present might mouse. Sorry, it just doesn't work for me.

The Performa model line. I was told that when sears sold Macs, there was some confusion because Sears had a line of Maytag washing machines called Performa.

 

[0007776]

Which Mac was it that was designed in such as way that you could not upgrade the RAM without taking apart the whole thing and removing the logic board? It was one of the models from about 1996 or 1997, possibly the 9500. Of course, this was in the dark days when RAM was very expensive.

from reading the thread it would seem to be these ones

PowerMac 8100/8500/9100/9500 case.

20 minutes, 10 cables and totally remove the motherboard just to upgrade RAM

 

[Old Mac Geezer]

4. Power Macintosh 6400/6500 Case: While lovely looking, these made the 8500s look easy to get into. To access the hard drive, owners were told to violently rip off the front of the machine. A "breaking plastic" noise was described as normal. What were they thinking!

5. Putting 64-bit things on 32-bit Busses: Very common in the early Power Mac era, the 52xx, 53xx, 62xx and 63xx (except the 6360) all featured horrible atrocious ridiculously bad performance. This long and humorous article explains why these systems were four times slower than they should have been, and gave the excellent PowerPC 603 such a bad rap.

I just got a 6500 recently without a hard drive and had to install one out of another machine to test it, so I can sympathize with anyone who has occasion to go inside their 6400/6500 for any reason. On the plus side, all you have to do is yank on the tabs on the back to get to the motherboard and don't have to open the case at all. For everything else, it's a nightmare of broken plastic tabs. I originally bought this thing thinking that it was an open tower design like on a PC and intending to transfer the guts of a newer machine into it but Apple has foiled that plan.

As for putting 64 bit things on 32 bit buses, Apple has a longer history of doing things like that than on the 603 based machines. They used to put 32 bit chips on 16 bit buses during the Mac II era and installed CPU's that ran at twice the speed of the bus they sat on even after faster bus speeds were available that could have accommodated the faster processor better. Frequently new machines would be slower than models introduced years earlier. Just go to Lowendmac.com and look at the road apple list and it will make you boggle at some of the bonehead moves Apple made back then.

 

[sushi]

PowerMac 8100/8500/9100/9500 case.

20 minutes, 10 cables and totally remove the motherboard just to upgrade RAM.

...and don't forget the bloody knuckles!

 

[dpaanlka]

As for putting 64 bit things on 32 bit buses, Apple has a longer history of doing things like that than on the 603 based machines.

Yes, but specifically the 64 on 32 examples were the worst IMHO.

They...installed CPU's that ran at twice the speed of the bus they sat on

So, computers still do that today. That itself isn't that bad as the whole cutting the width of the bus in half thing they had going on.

Frequently new machines would be slower than models introduced years earlier.

But no machine that I can think of off the top of my head was replaced with something slower. Of course a low end system was going to be slower than a high end system from one or two years ago.