Not everything Steve Jobs does is insanely great
iPod nano v3 - naNO!
The original iPod nano (September 2005) was a sleek beauty. Version 2 (September 2006) was a very dull version of it, but version 3 (September 2007) was quite the reverse. Gone was the long, skinny body in favour of something, well, stubby. It quickly got nicknamed "Fat Boy" - possibly in homage to the early nuke, so horribly did it tarnish the nano's former good looks. A year later it was gone, and the skinny nano was back.
Apple TV - brains turned off
Steve Jobs once put down the television as uninteresting: "We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on."
But along came Apple TV, a product that even today still feels half loved.
It was first announced in September 2006 as iTV - a product name that immediately damned it in the eyes of the Britsh, where national TV station ITV is famous for its lame dramas, dreadful comedies and even adverts!
Its name also clashed with a Mac accessory, Elgato's EyeTV. Everything about this product began to look a bit rushed and ill-thought out.
iTV/Apple TV was a telly-bound version of Apple's Front Row media centre Mac software. It got another mention the following January at Macworld Expo and it started shipping a couple of months later.
I'm always suspicious of Apple products announced well ahead of schedule, and the notion of Apple TV as a bold new product had certainly waned by the time of its release.
While our homes have welcomed DVRs such as the Tivo or Sky+ the Apple TV is probably found only in Mac journalists' dens. It lacks a TV tuner, which frankly cripples it from the off.
The Movies "Search" feature searches only iTunes Store movies. iTunes movie rentals can be transferred to any video-enabled iPod, iPhone or Apple TV for playing, but any movie rented on Apple TV must be watched on Apple TV.
To copy a movie purchased on Apple TV to a video-enabled iPod or iPhone, the movie must first be transferred to an iTunes-enabled computer on the network. Apple TV/iTunes is "not designed" to sync or stream content from networked drives to Apple TV.
Content that can be synced or streamed to Apple TV has to be on the local drive or an external drive directly connected to the iTunes-enabled computer.
Maybe Apple had its brain turned off when it was meant to be making this a great product. Frankly I'd rather watch ITV.
MobileMe - MobileMe(ss)
Apple started the decade with the release of some ace, free online services, called iTools. A year later it had changed this name to .Mac, and it wasn't free any more. In 2008 Apple changed its name again - never a great sign for a product's integrity or long-term prospects - this time to MobileMe. .Mac was never going to appeal to Windows users, although I'm not sure that MobileMe will either.
MobileMe was launched as the "Microsoft Exchange for the rest of us" - it wasn't Apple Marketing's greatest hour either, was it?
Changing a product's name is clumsy, but when that name is also part of your email address it becomes maddeningly stupid.
You could still use your @mac.com address at the same time as your new @me.com address, so at least there's some change delay built in. But it confused current users greatly - as did the removal of favourite services such as the fun and friendly iCards and tremendous HomePage web publishing.
Worse still, the MobileMe launch was surely Apple's most botched ever. For weeks after launch, over 20,000 subscribers weren't able to access their email through MobileMe.
The free trial of MobileMe inadvertently charged some Australian and European customers' credit cards, leading Apple to issue refunds and extend the free trial to four months.
It got so bad that even Apple eventually admitted it was a colossal cock up. Steve Jobs nearly said sorry.
In an internal email sent to Apple employees on August 4, 2008 Jobs admitted that MobileMe was launched too hurriedly and "not up to Apple's standards".
He wrote that "it was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store".
On August 18, 2008, it was announced that MobileMe subscribers would be offered a 60-day extension in addition to the one-month extension previously offered.
In a word, shambles.
NEXT: More Apple duds of the decade...
Comments
Garry said: Guys this article looks at 10 not-so-great Apple products from the past decade It doesnt say that these were the only things Apple produced in those 10 years If you disagree with any of the products mentioned then do so rationally not just attack the writer for daring to expose a few weak Apple products One of you says the nano was great The writer says the same but picks on just one version
MDC said: It seems that the Apple fans think that they have the right to censor anyone who even mildly criticises an Apple product The one time I used an Apple computer I thought that the one button mouse was so bizarely bad that I never tried again
Farnoud said: very biased article you perhaps are a Microsoft fanboy
Hadi said: I used some of these products and those are not bad apple tv spotlight ipod nano etc they are very successful infactstop writing dude its not your thing
Kippert said: Cant you Apple fans bear to see any criticism of Apple This is just a light article looking back at the past 10 years of Apple stuff Not all of it was super amazing There are other articles here looking at Apples really great products over the decade So get over it
alan14 said: I always find it interesting when anyone even slightly criticises Apple the fanbois come running out to complain loudly How can anyone possibly criticise the work of St Steve and his minionsBy the way did any of you use the G4 Cube it was so slow that using photoshop was like swimming through treacle and the touch sensitive onoff switch was a big mistake brush against it whist reaching for a CD from the toaster slot would switch the thing off
Meghann said: Oh my gosh what is your problem with Apple Im not sure whether all of the I think Steve must have been drunkpopping pills comments are supposed to be a joke but theyre not really funny Some of these products are not Apples best some of them actually are but they are far from failures This was a nice idea for an article but it just didnt work Im afraid Leave Apple alone unless you have something constructive to say
Jeff2 said: Harvey wrote iPod socks were meant to be a humorous accessory but this list treats it like a serious productMate this was clearly written as a humorous story but you treat it like a serious one
Joe said: Hey SimonDid Apple steal your girlfriend or something Whats with the mindless Apple-bashingWhile some of those products may not have been the very best of Apples work the worst of them is better than what the rest of the industry was putting out - and Ill bet 100 that YOU have never had a successful product that was 110 as successful of the WORST of the 10 Apple products youre attacking Worthless bloggers cant come up with anything original so they resort to linkbait trash like this - and I fell for it
David Staples said: Mention of the Apple Cube really should have covered its unfortunate habit of overheating and cracks in the case subsequently appearing No wonder Apple destroyed their unsold inventoryAnyone who thinks that there are no real duds in this list has clearly never used the iMac burger mouse a design so hideous that it spawned an entire mini-industry of slipover covers to improve its otherwise dismal ergonomicsThese delusional souls are probably typing their regurgitated Apple propaganda while wearing a pair of iPod socksHowever they seem to be typing so fast that they appear to have missed this statement in relation to the ROKRApple may now try to pretend that this was just a Motorola product that it had nothing to do with but why then was it unveiled at a special Apple event in September 2005Any comment on that Harvey
Harvey said: Its hard to find a real dud in this list Is Spotlight a dud Nope Is ROKR an Apple dud Its not an Apple product but a Motorola product iPod socks were meant to be a humorous accessory but this list treats it like a serious product Other products were well designed and produced They werent failures like the Zune for example
CLH said: Heh - a little forced But what would you expect from someone whose name anagrams to Joins ArmyBWAHA
Hammerjack said: I think its become fashionable for tech zines to dump on the Apple TV but for what it does the thing is a godsend--especially for the movies my kins like to watch over and over Instead of juggling DVDs for them I just hand over the ATV remote and they pick what they want Heaven
Dickdotcom said: AppleTV isnt as perfect as most Apple products but its way better than any of the competition and in conjunction with the remote app on the iPhone or iPod touch it becomes incredible All the things you list as problems are actually strengths as it means you get a clean user interface and all the messy encoding library stuff you do on your computer I bought mine the day it came out and have loved it ever since Even my wife loves it and thats saying something
PV said: 8 out of 10 not bad Mighty mouse is a reasonable success I clean it once a month but it works very well That may be due to the fact that I wash my hands from time to time Spotlight is one of the best tools on OS X -- not perfect but it works great 95 of the time It may have been slow on my PPC but it blazes on my MacBook Pro My only complaint is the limited view options under show all