50 years of Apple
We’re celebrating Apple’s 50th birthday with a week of content about the tech giant. It covers everything from personal recollections from our writers to the greatest — and worst — Apple gadgets as voted by you, and you can read it all on our 50 years of Apple page.
Apple is celebrating its 50 birthday in a few days on April 1 — but as we all know, it’s not all been smooth sailing over the last half century.
From suede-like phone cases to bin-like computers and not-so-magic mice, Apple has stumbled a number of times in its long history. We picked out some of the biggest hardware flops from the company, but we wanted to let you have your say — so this ranking of the top 11 worst Apple gadgets is based on your votes (from a poll on the TechRadar WhatsApp channel).
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Take a moment to consider: what’s the worst product Apple has ever made in your opinion? Then read on to see the verdict from TechRadar readers, which, we’ve got to say, we fully agree with when it comes to the main offender.
We’ll go through the rankings in reverse order, from number 11 down to the top spot. Also, note that we have a poll running for the best Apple gadgets ever if you want to celebrate its more successful attempts at innovation — and please do let us know in the comments below if we’ve missed any notable clangers…
11. ‘Trash Can’ Mac Pro (2013)
- What they said in 2013: “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass” (Apple’s Phil Schiller at WWDC 2013)
Apple considered all sorts of nuances with the design of the Mac Pro that arrived in 2013. This pro-targeted computer was way more compact than its predecessor, much lighter, and yet packed a whole heap of performance, with a nifty cooling setup to ensure it ran commendably (even spookily) quietly.
There was just one small detail Apple overlooked, and this was that the redesigned Mac Pro looked like a wastepaper bin. Not a little like a bin – a lot like one, and so the device was informally known as the ‘Trash Can’ Mac. Doubtless that’s not a nickname Apple was particularly pleased to see attached to its high-powered, shiny new piece of very expensive hardware.
The Mac Pro was actually a great computer – 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 3rd Gen came with a startling innovation — it had no buttons! Not on the device, anyway, as the controls for playback and skipping tracks were moved from the body of the gadget to be in-line on the cable of the earbuds.
This meant the iPod Shuffle could be smaller and more minimalist – and lighter, too, indeed it resembled a cigarette lighter – but the new earbud-based controls were a very messy way of working, to say the least. The 3rd Gen model was criticized for being seriously unintuitive for navigating your music collection, plus third-party earbuds were problematic and often didn’t work (so you just had to listen to your music play straight through, with no skip or other controls).
This model did introduce VoiceOver – spoken track info, which sounds pedestrian now, but was a neat touch back at the time – but overall, the 3rd-generation iPod Shuffle was regarded as a flop due to Apple’s ill-thought-out button design. The next-gen model was warmly welcomed when it brought back the controls onto the body of the iPod with a wheel for navigation, which tells you all you need to know here.
8. Apple III (1980)
- What they said: “A complete disaster” (Ed Smith, Apple dealership manager and computer pioneer in the 1980s)
With this one, we’re going way back to 1980, and Apple’s attempt to make a PC for the business world. The Apple III looked the part – which is to say it was a hulking all-in-one with integrated CRT monitor perched atop the device – but it was seriously flawed.
In fact, the first 14,000 Apple III computers that were shipped were defective, reportedly suffering from “chips [that] had the nasty habit of popping out of their sockets” and rumored problems with said chips actually ‘melting’ inside the (overly toasty) chassis. This led to a full recall of those PCs, and the halting of production. Although a fixed and revamped model was later released, it was too little, too late.
This was an unmitigated disaster, essentially, and rumor also has it (via Reddit) that tech support advice for an Apple III that had gone wonky back in the day was to ‘lift the machine three inches and drop it in order to reseat the chips on the logic board’ (also known as impact maintenance).
7. Apple Newton (1993)
- What they said: “Either terribly innacurate or terribly slow — in whichever case, it was simply… terrible” (Paleotronic)
The Newton MessagePad was an early take on the PDA or personal digital assistant. Apple’s Newton was a touchscreen notepad plus stylus with which you could jot down thoughts or notes, and it used handwriting recognition to decipher your scribblings.
The trouble was, as The Simpsons memorably made clear in the dig below, the handwriting recognition was poor, which made using the thing less than ideal.
The Newton was an idea ahead of its time, and Apple genuinely deserves credit for what it tried to do here. However, the end result was too flaky, and it was also exorbitantly expensive, with the base model costing $699 at launch, a whole lot of cash in the early nineties (now around $1,500, adjusted for inflation). And it was even more if you wanted some of the necessary extras for the PDA.
6. iPhone 5C (2013)
- What we said in 2013: ‘Not much more than 2012’s device shoved in a plastic case”
This was the first ‘affordable’ iPhone and it arrived in 2013, but the air quotes are in place there because the trouble with the iPhone 5C was that Apple didn’t get the price right. Which was a bit of a critical mistake, frankly.
As we pointed out in our review at the time, the iPhone 5C was basically 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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