Apple's Lamest Designs
 

Apple has an impressive record of delivering well-designed products, especially since the return of Steve Jobs. However, there's been a few tragedies since his return, outlined below.

1. The Clamshell iBook - Widely known as the 'toilet seat' Mac, this is a machine even Mac faithful would rather not be seen in public with. Luckily it was replaced with the current iBook design, that challenges even the G3 PowerBooks in elegance. Originally retailing for $1599, it more closely resembles a $30 children's educational toy.

2. The Flower Power iMac - The "it's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain" Mac, designed by your mother after watching an episode of Martha Stewart on redecorating home computers. Its true name, Flower Power is deceptive, since the consumption of psychedelic drugs generally leads to more creative compositions than this.

3. The Puck Mouse - Just looking at it is painful.

4. The original iMac keyboard - Escape, function, and arrow keys never where you expect them. More troubling, however, is the awkward placement of page up and down. While I believe they should be incinerated, others seem to feel less hatred toward them, and argue for their mercy.

5. The QuickSilver 2002 Drive Bays - Even in 2002, the demise of the zip drive was eminent; why ruin a perfectly good drive bay by limiting it only to a zip drive? Perhaps limiting it to a zip drive wouldn't be so bad, if one could install an off the shelf drive, and not need a $30 dollar bezel to do so. Luckily after market solutions such as the Sweet Multiport allow one to utilize the bay for more than dust collection.

Add more design blunders at your own discretion.

I would nominate the 8500. Worst case design ever...If you have ever worked on one, you know what I'm talking about. Still better than a lot of PCs I have worked on.

The windtunnel G4's. My friend's G4 sounds like a jet engine and looks like some sort of industrial vacuum. I think it just might be louder than an air compressor.

*HISS* i like all three of those designs, especially the clamshell iBook.
i would buy one if i could get one with a good processor. i had a puck mouse a friend gave me and was using it with my G4 when my pro mouse broke ( ok when i broke my mouse, and two keyboards, i can be just a little rough with things sometimes) but i've since replaced it with a bt mouse.

although i couldn't agree more on the flower power iMac... that should never have been created. wonder if they sold more than 3 of them??

I nominate every mouse Apple ever designed. They're either too square, too round, lacking buttons, or have weird buttons. I've had to use 3rd party pointing devices from the day I first got my hand on one.

I really think the Apple III wasn't enough of an improvement over the Apple II to bother bringing it to market. :D

I just found out two of my coworkers had a bubble iMac hiding in their office, so I forced them to install Tiger and start using OS X to get used to it. They had a puck mouse (SUCH a terrible design). Next time I went up to their office, an Apple Pro Mouse went with me and the puck went into the trash. I hate those puck mice.

I never did like the original iMac, but I remember becoming interested
in Apple products after that. I remember the Flower Power iMac, I thought
it fit right in some grandma's bathroom.

I also didn't like that camera they made that looked like some
binoculars, I dunno, was it called quicktime camera?

I never liked Apple's one button mouse except the recent ones( not the
mighty mouse which I hate). I use a multi button mouse for work but
for everything else I use the one button mouse, maybe I just love the
way they look.

The 12 inch RGB monitor with a maximum resolution of 560 x 384.

The Apple Keyboard II, and the AppleDesign keyboard — the two lemons of ADB keyboards.

Ditto the already-nominated puck mouse. That was bad news.

The Macintosh Portable. Not appreciably lighter than a Mac SE and nowhere near as pretty.

I was kind of hoping to keep this limited to products released after Steve Jobs' return.

Well in all fairness, that was intended for the IIgs; I think it served its purpose with that machine quite well. The Apple Keyboard II was definitely a step down from its predecessor; the keys were far too mushy. However, I don't think the AppleDesign keyboard was incredibly horrible; it was primarily used with the IIgs after all.

Ditto the puck mice...would produce all sorts of horrible results when used over a full day in Illustrator or Photoshop!

BUT, I love my clam!

Don't be quick to diss the puck mouse. Remove the ball, put it on the floor, and it makes a fairly decent foot switch. ;)

Yeah those puck mice are terrible. I also hate the apple speakers, the little clear plastic balls. The slightest push of the desk and it sends them rolling. If they only had better bases.

I like the clamshell iBooks quite a bit. The current iBooks and Powerbooks seem... dull. I have a Pismo, which is a nice compromise -- powerful enough for the tasks I want, nice enough design so that I like looking at it.

the hockey puck mouse works very well as a light pull in our downstairs toilet at work!

I always liked this spoof (http://notesweb.uni-wh.de/wg/wiwi/wgwiwi.nsf/vwFiles/UTOXLIII_4/$FILE/utoXLIII_4.jpg)

It's not ugly per se, but I'd nominate the G3 All-in-One. That mofo weighed 60 pounds! We delivered them for first-years on campus from a distribution point to their dorm rooms, so there was a bunch of skinny geeks lugging these things around for football player-types, among others. :eek:

Another one for the "not exactly ugly" category - but the combination of having no visible CD eject button on the machine (or sometimes even the keyboard) and a big shiny, enticing round thing right in the middle of the front panel of some G4 models... Not that the sound was great to begin with, but having countless users poke out the speaker with a finger certainly didn't improve matters.

I'm not sure what Apple was thinking by exposing the internal speaker like that in Quicksilvers. Fortunately, I've never seen these machines in an educational environment (though, they were undoubtedly deployed); I can just imagine how many pencils were shoved through those things while slaving over a paper at 12 AM in a lab.

I bought a pair of these for my Quicksilver, although I see some other options.

I would not call it a lame design, but the iMacs with the coloured hoods now look more appropriately placed in a museum. At the time, however, I thought they were a colour-sparkling revolution.

I considered purchasing one (not the Flower Power), but I’m glad I didn’t. Instead, I bought a used graphite G4 and a turquoise G3 tower, and spend good money on large, good displays (one of them a LaCie). Still got ’em, still using ’em!

The puck mouse? Not my favourite, but my girlfriend is still using hers.


- ArcticStones

Well....
 

I have no experience with 4. or 5. I'd agree on the first 3. That mouse was truly painful. And the clamshell iBook?? Laptop as kid's toy. No self-respecting professional person would be seen with one of those. Even my college-bound daughter doubled over laughing. Fortunately Apple corrected beautifully with the next generation iBook. And the flower-power iMac????

What's with Apple and the mouse anyway? Why did it take so long for them to get on board with multiple buttons? I like the "white mouse" for its comfort in hand, but quickly miss the right-click. Both our Macs now link to Logitech mice for that reason. Even my Apple Bluetooth mouse got replaced by a little Radtech 2-button....

Actually, that monitor was NOT for the IIgs. I don't think it will work on a IIgs. I think it was designed for the Macintosh LC. The IIgs monitor requires a 15KHz horizontal oscillator and I don't think the LC monitor would go down that low.

Likewise, the keyboard shown was for the Mac LC. You can tell because the IIgs keyboard (which is GREAT!) has the CONTROL key in the right place. In fact, I think it might be the LAST Apple keyboard to have the CONTROL key in the right place.

Apple's two lamest products are without a doubt...
#2: The Apple ///.
#1: The Round Mouse

i Don't got a clam, but if they still sold them I would get one dude I liked em but I have a new Ibook g4 which works fine for me
and I disliked puck mice
but i still have 1 which i sometimes carry around with my laptop for a small mouse i can use
but the new apple mousee is so awesome

I gatta give it to the clamshells, they are built tough!