But for all its design clout, sometimes Apple pursuesformat the expense offunction.
Other times, it just makes some flat-out bizarre choices that make no sense.
What follows is a list of just some of Apples worst design and user-experience decisions over the years.
The Macintosh TV
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Indeed, it sold so poorly that Apple discontinued the product in a little over 3months.
But at launch, it simply wasnt all that good.
In particular, the handwriting recognition its headline feature was awful in the first few models.
That isnt too surprising given handwriting recognition in 2021 still isnt perfect.
Jobs disdain for the Newton mightve arguably even inspired the iPhone.
Thats a shame, coming from the company that popularized the mouse in the first place.
But then the third generation of the equipment threw the baby out with the bathwater by eliminating buttons altogether.
Ive heard many an Apple fan say it is the best-designed iPhone of them all.
Well, except for one big issue: simply holding the equipment could cause it to lose signal.
The iPhone 4s frame iconic metal frame also served as its antennas.
This led to Steve Jobs notoriouslyresponding to peoples complaintsby saying just avoid holding it this way.
That quickly found itself inmeme territory, albeit often paraphrased as youre holding it wrong.
Apple eventually acknowledged the problem and started to offer bumper cases for consumers that would reduce the problem.
Sure, youd only have to charge it occasionally, but its still utterly nonsensical.
On the one hand, it was a head-turner.
On the other hand, it kind of looked like a glossy trash can.
Forcing people who dont give a darn about Bono to download the album if they had automatic downloads enabled?
It might not be ahardwaredesign fail, but it sure is a weird user experience decision.
The frame was weakest around the volume buttons in particular.
Charging the original Apple Pencil
In another instance of why does it charge like that?
Apples original Pencil charged by plugging directly into the iPads lightning port.
It made your iPad look like a giant fly swatter and seemed destined to lead to damaged connectors.
Charging of the Apple Pencil is really super elegant and refinedpic.twitter.com/vfkKq3QKcH
?
Thankfully, Apple moved to wireless charging for the Apple Pencil 2.
Apple cables in general
Apple cables have been notoriously prone to cracking and fraying throughout the years.
All in the name of shaving off a millimeter or two.
It didnt launch with multi-room support or the ability to create a stereo pair.
And Siri was not as good or flexible as the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
And there was no way to connect it to a physical audio output either.
Apple discontinued it in a little over three years.
But on the 2021 Mac Pro, the notch is simply puzzling.
Worse, it led tonumerous UI issuesat launch, and Apples official explanation for not using Face ID wasnonsense.
Such is often the story with Apple.
As much as the company pushes design forward, sometimes that means living with the quirks too.
