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What is Apple's worst product of all time?

What about the twentieth anniversary Mac? It wasn't necessarily a bad product, but definitely the one people probably don't remeber. Although, in some episodes of Seinfeld you can see one on Jerry's desk. :)
 
No Question, the Hockey Puck mouse is a clear big time loser. It encapsulates almost perfectly all the worst aspects of aesthetic driven industrial design with no redeeming usability features. It is a triumph of form over function.

Nothing about this product was good. It was impossible to accurately mouse with it, the ball tracked poorly as the whole mousebody rotated in your hand like some out-of-control helicopter with no tail, or worse, scooted entirely out of your grip like a greasy bar of soap.

All my kids hated it despite Apple promoting it as a perfect fit for their hands.

This product clearly was never tested by anyone with half a brain at Apple before it went onto production, and we were all lumbered with years of scorn and derision from the PC crowd as we flailed about trying to get some work done with this poxy orb.

-5,000,000 points for that one Apple. I think the designer of this loathsome disc should volunteer to have one inserted where the sun doesn't shine.
 
Just read back thru the thread and I think the hockey puck is the clear winner. And to all of you who say its a great mouse, I just wannna see those hands of yours, because I reckon you'd have to be some sort of 3 fingered alien mutant love-child to fully appreciate that device.

No offence intended to any genuine 3 fingered aliens who might be reading this thread from Beta 3 Fingerus or whatever. ;)
 
The puck never caught on fire, nor did it melt or come from apple broken. It didn't have a habit of being fried during power surges or dying randomly. It would not get hot and leak a caustic orange substance nor would it fall apart if you picked it up. In my opinion the lack of these features is what really condemns the puck, because if it had any of them, I wouldn't have to use them at school.
 
Originally posted by ZeppelinArmada
The puck never caught on fire, nor did it melt or come from apple broken. It didn't have a habit of being fried during power surges or dying randomly. It would not get hot and leak a caustic orange substance nor would it fall apart if you picked it up. In my opinion the lack of these features is what really condemns the puck, because if it had any of them, I wouldn't have to use them at school.
Click to expand...

YESSS - That's the bit I missed, the damn thing wouldn't die, it was a robust, ubiquitous inconvenience, like the influenza virus or airport security checks.
 
LC

No question in my mind. The LC. A friend had one in college and it was so pathetic it couldn't even handle the 19,200bps serial connection in his dorm. That thing was a Luser.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
The entire Performa line.
Click to expand...

The Performa 6400 was pretty good. But the worst in my opinion was the LCII crippled. Along with the LC, IIvx, 6100, and the 6xxx Perfroma line exept the 6360. What else? Oh yeah the overpriced fruity ibooks, the 500mhz powermac g4's and the first rev imac( 28.8k modem, 2mb vram, skmpy software package)
 
Performa 6300 series.

Apple monitors from the mid-90's era - they had a really high failure rate.

The pre-recall powerbook 5300 is a close runner up, even though its tendency to catch on fire was overhyped.
 
I'll cast my vote for the original "suitcase" Macintosh Portable.

That being said, I'd still love to own one. I can put it on the shelf with my Newtons.

M.
 
Originally posted by tjwett
i think the 14" iBook is just a nightmare and a mistake.
Click to expand...

I agree the 14" isn't the most elegant Mac ever made, but calling it a nightmare is going a bit too far, in my opninion.
Many around me bought the iBook 14" because of its "perfect" size, and relative cheapness.
I have the 12" iBook (700 Mhz), and I love it! But my boss (> 50 years), fell in love with the 14". Why? One simple reason: He could read everything on the display. He didn't want a "huge" 17" PB, or the "too small" 12' PB.... he wanted the "perfect 14" iBook"....

I think this thread isn't about opinion, but about facts.
The hockey puck mouse was functionally NOT a good mouse! OMG, the company who made ths mouse standard on a computer, messed it up! That's a BAD product.
The Performa 6XXX (series, especially the 6200) had a pretty bad NICs installed. If you plugged the thernet cable in, chances were you unplugged the NIC itself.... Another BAD product.

My vote goes to the hockey puck mouse.
 
That god-awful hockey puck called "mouse". It hurt my hand to use the bloody thing. They would be better suited as props in a cheap scifi movie than as office tools.

Perhaps I'll find one and burn it in effigy.

Nice idea. But so was "Reaganomics".
 
i hate to say it but i hate the current pro-mouse more than the hockeypuck ones - atleast you can click+drag them over a long distance! with the promouse you have to use both hands to make sure the button's still depressed when you pick up the mouse to move it to the other side of the mousemat.
 
I've never had any problem getting with Apple's bandwagon on different, mouse designs. They have all worked very well with me for Architecture.

I think 10.0 really bites the big one, as well as 8.5, only because they really were so aweful.

10.2 is good, but we from what I am seeing in Panther, I will definatly be buying that upgrade

(my #1 item is the graphite basestation that just overheated though)
 
Originally posted by mrjamin
atleast you can click+drag them over a long distance! with the promouse you have to use both hands to make sure the button's still depressed when you pick up the mouse to move it to the other side of the mousemat.
Click to expand...

I just did that with my Pro Mouse with one hand...

I like my Pro Mouse. Sure, I wouldn't buy the thing seperately (costs too much for what it is), but it's good enough that I didn't buy a new mouse for my G4 iMac.
 
Originally posted by MacFan26
What about the twentieth anniversary Mac? It wasn't necessarily a bad product, but definitely the one people probably don't remeber. Although, in some episodes of Seinfeld you can see one on Jerry's desk. :)
Click to expand...

Oh man, the Smoke & Mirrors is one of the best Apple computers ever. A bit overpriced, perhaps, but this was a true Apple luxury computer, with beautiful LCD and built-in speakers. A nice, pristine, dark computer. I wish I had one.
 
Honestly, every product before 2001 was garbage in my opinion (with the exception of the Pismo). Of course, that was when I was a very biased PC owner.

So in my 2 years of owning a mac, the worst Apple products I've actually used are....

hardware... hockey puck mouse.
software.... OS 10.0

Dishonerable mention... OS 9

After buying my iBook 500 I had to use OS 9 to dial up to AOL. OS 10 had no software and was damn slow... but it looked nice.
At the time I was flipping between OS X and Yellow Dog Linux because it was so bad.
 
Originally posted by Doctor Q
Would Apple's online service, eWorld, be considered a failure because it closed after a couple of years, or just a temporary success?

eWorldORIG.jpg
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Again, apple failed here because they were before their time, they were like AOL... too many years too soon.


Worst product:
Powerbook Duo Series (210, 230, 250, 280)

Those things weighted Like 15 Pounds!


Oh yeah very 'portable'!

:eek:
 
Originally posted by MrMacman
Again, apple failed here because they were before their time, they were like AOL... too many years too soon.


Worst product:
Powerbook Duo Series (210, 230, 250, 280)

Those things weighted Like 15 Pounds!


Oh yeah very 'portable'!

:eek:
Click to expand...
they still weighed less than modern day dell laptops ;)

/end mac bias :)
 
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