'You've tarnished Apple's reputation': 11 things Apple got horribly wrong over the past 50 years | Tech Radar

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'You've tarnished Apple's reputation': 11 things Apple got horribly wrong over the past 50 years

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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.

This week marks Apple’s fiftieth anniversary, and the company has been a core pillar of the tech landscape for much of that time.

From the i Phone to the evolution of the Mac, Apple has had a glorious run of wins. But sometimes its reach exceeds its grasp, usually when it turns to form over function, or when it underwhelms by overpromising and underdelivering.

We've already rounded up Apple's worst-ever gadgets (and, for balance, its best gadgets of the past half century). But the moments below represent its biggest lapses in judgement across software, services and baffling product decisions.

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Ranked: The 15 best Apple gadgets of the past 50 years — as voted for by you

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We're big fans of Apple when it gets things right – which happens more often than not – but even the most hardened fan has to admit that the company has dropped some huge, and sometimes hilarious, tech clangers...

Before i Cloud, there was Mobile Me, which itself came from the likes of i Tools and . Mac. This paid service acted very similarly to what we expect from cloud services today, like offering cloud storage that worked across Mail, Contacts, Calendars and more.

Unfortunately, it quickly earned the nickname “Mobile Mess” because it was too unreliable to be used by just about anyone. Syncing was unreliable, often dropping out right when you needed access to your most important files, and many users complained about missing emails.

This embarrassing launch infuriated Steve Jobs, who reportedly rounded up the development team and told them: “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation. You should hate each other for having let each other down.”

After debuting in 2008, it was taken offline in 2012 and paved over with the much more reliable i Cloud. If you’ve ever cursed an i Cloud sync issue, count yourself lucky you’re not using Mobile Me instead.

Ever seen an i Mac G3? They have a great, retro quality today, but back in 1998, they were the future — a brightly-colored look at the computing future of tomorrow.

The trouble was that the mouse that came with it, the Apple USB Mouse, was circular. If you’ve ever used a mouse (and there’s a very good chance you, the discerning Tech Radar reader, have), you’ll know that holding onto a circular mouse is hardly conducive to a strong grip or getting much done.

I saw Steve Jobs give his last WWDC presentation — here's why it still matters

Combine that with a short cable, and you’ve got a rounded recipe for hand cramp. The worst part? Apple persevered with it for two years.

Read more: 'A complete disaster': The 11 worst Apple gadgets of the past 50 years, according to you

While Apple Maps has become a very reliable mapping service, its launch was a thing of legend — and not for positive reasons.

Apple was keen to remove Google Maps from its devices and began work on its own maps app. It launched in September 2012, and just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was an Apple Park-sized fumble.

Incorrect location information, unreliable directions, and Apple’s inability to read the room when it comes to geopolitical tensions were all criticized by users. Incredibly, new CEO Tim Cook actually told users to look at rivals while i OS Maps was being fixed.

"While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, Map Quest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app," he said at the time in an open letter on Apple's website.

While Apple Maps is now a much better product — some would argue, even better than Google Maps — for some it’ll always tainted by this launch.

Read more: Apple admits Maps failure, suggests users try competitor apps

Whether you were an i Tunes die-hard or using another service entirely, there’s a good chance the removal of i Tunes Ping was something you didn’t even realize happened.

Pitched by Steve Jobs as a crossover between the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and i Tunes, the idea was to make it easier to share music with your friends and family, see what they were buying, and was accessible across the i Phone and i Pod Touch.

Sadly, Ping was short-lived: Apple released it in September 2010, and it was gone just two years later.

Tim Cook, who didn't take over as CEO until after Ping launched, summed up Ping's lackluster reception with characteristic understatement. "We tried Ping and I think the customer voted and said this isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into… Will we kill it? I don’t know. We’ll look at that," he said.

A month later, Apple did indeed look at that — and pulled the plug on poor Ping.

Do you like U2? Back in September 2014, it didn't really matter what your answer was to that question because Apple beamed Bono and Co’s Songs of Innocence album straight into your i Tunes library.

All 500 million i Tunes subscribers found the album waiting for them, whether they wanted it or not. For some, it caused storage space issues, and it wasn’t particularly easy to remove, either.

It also led to deeper conversations about the value of music and raised suggestions that U2 had devalued the art form. Just wait until you get to streaming services, guys…

Read more: Achtung freebie: U2 album gives the internet another reason to hate i Tunes

Nothing sums up Apple’s focus on form over function — and the occasional lapses that can create — better than the Butterfly keyboard fiasco of 2015.

The Mac Book 12-inch was already grabbing the wrong kind of headlines for switching out USB for USB-C (which at the time was still an emerging technology), but the keyboard’s ‘butterfly’ hinge system was a huge issue for Apple — especially since it came to Mac Book Pro and Mac Book Air models, too.

From repeating keys to keys simply detaching themselves while in use, the whole thing cost Apple millions to fix. The free repair program expired in 2024, so if your keyboard fails now, you’re out of luck.

Read more: Apple is finally writing checks for its butterfly keyboard fiasco - so if you made a claim it’s time to cash in

7. The i Tunes Phone that made i Pods looks amazing

If you were looking for a way to take your i Tunes library on the go back in 2005, your only option outside of Apple’s own i Pod was the Motorola ROKR E1.

Not heard of it? We don’t blame you. Billed as the phone that let you take your i Tunes library anywhere, there were two major downsides.

For one, its USB 1.1 speeds meant moving files to and from the device was glacially slow. The other issue was that it would only allow users to download 100 songs to it in order to protect i Pod sales.

That’s not exactly a great sales pitch — and it's incredible to think that just 15 months after the video above, Apple would introduce the i Phone and immediately make all 'music phones' look like ancient history.

Read more: Our Motorola ROKR E1 review from back in the day

Every now and then, Apple makes a decision that feels like it could have been avoided by asking just one person outside of the design room what they thought.

One of those was burying the Mac Mini power button under the otherwise amazing mini PC. But the most famous example is the Magic Mouse (Second Generation). On the top half, it’s everything Apple does so well — it’s a great mouse, comfortable in the hand and stylish, while supporting slick gestures. On the bottom? The charging port.

That means that, if you want to use the computer while charging the mouse (hardly an unreasonable use case), you need to plug it in and use an alternative mouse while it powers up.

Apple then stunned the computing world by doubling-down on this decision with a redesigned Magic Mouse in 2024, which is a rare example of a consumer product also being an immaculate piece of rage-bait.

Read more: Good news! Apple finally redesigns the Magic Mouse with USB-C! Bad news! The charging port is still on the bottom

Apple’s 'Let's meet at our place' September 2017 event would be remembered for many things, including the i Phone X — which is a good thing, given that one of the announced products never actually shipped.

The i Phone 8 and 8 Plus were overshadowed by the reveal of the i Phone X, the first i Phone to remove the home button and go for an all-screen display. Its $999 price tag got a lot of attention, but so too did Air Power.

A charging mat intended to charge your phone, Air Pods, and Apple Watch all at once, regardless of where you lay them, was almost a no-brainer for a company releasing all three in the same year.

Sadly, manufacturing issues with the prototype meant Air Power never made it to market, with some reports suggesting that Apple’s early units struggled to dissipate heat and also melted the plastic — oof.

Read more: Air Power prototype shows why Apple was right to abandon its wireless charger

10. Antennagate, or how to dig yourself a bigger hole

(Image credit: Sean Locke Photography / Shutterstock)

The i Phone 4 debuted in 2010 with a new design that made your i Phone 3GS look hokey by comparison, but the new metal frame that doubled as the antenna was holding a secret — or, more specifically, those holding it would find that its signal would drop out.

Apple initially claimed users were, in a way, 'holding it wrong'. Well, Apple didn't exactly say that, but it did say in a misguided statement: "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your i Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

It soon became a widespread enough issue to prompt Apple to eventually issue a formal apology and offer free bumper cases to affected users.

Thankfully, the i Phone 4S, which launched the next year, shared the same visual design but fixed the antenna issue.

Read more: Need more i Phone 4 signal? There's no app for that

With the rest of the tech world foaming at the mouth for AI products and services, Apple was seemingly caught in a standing start and struggling to make up ground.

Siri was behind the curve (to put it politely) when pitted against other assistants, and while Apple had partnered with Chat GPT to solve some issues, it was clear it needed a quantum leap to catch up.

Thankfully, that’s what was promised at WWDC 2024, showcasing how Siri could read your emails to extract context and much more. The trouble? Many of the features didn’t ship, and many still haven’t, almost two years later.

The company faced lawsuits based on false advertising for the promised features, and is now seemingly partnering with Google Gemini to supercharge Siri to get even close to what was promised.

Read more: Apple sets WWDC for June 8 — and this may be its last best chance to fix Siri and deliver the AI we were promised

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Lloyd Coombes is a freelance tech and fitness writer for Tech Radar. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as Computer and Gaming tech, with previous works published on Top Ten Reviews, Space.com, and Live Science. You'll find him regularly testing the latest Mac Book or i Phone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games at Dexerto.

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• 'You've tarnished Apple's reputation': 11 things Apple got horribly wrong over the past 50 years