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Yesterday (October 22, 2007) Oobject published a list of the 16 worst Apple products ever (since updated to 18) – and we just have to disagree with some of them.

We have no clue how Oobject picked its list. One of the 16 computers wasn’t even made by Apple, and some seem to be on the list because they’re kinda ugly, while others are there because they were hardware disasters (the Apple III) or only on the market for four months (the Mac IIvi).

They missed some obvious choices.

It’s certainly a way to get attention for your website, as Mac users tend to be opinionated, vocal, and hate seeing their favorite computer line unfairly maligned. Anyhow, once they had their initial list, they let visitors to their website vote on them. Here’s the list as seen on the Oobject website this morning:

LC 500 Series
Apple III
Newton eMate 300
Macintosh IIvi
Umax SuperMac S900
LC 630
Apple Network Server 500
Color Classic
PowerBook 5300
Mac Portable
PowerBook Duo
Mac Classic
Clamshell iBook
eMac
3G iPod
Newton MessagePad 2100
WallStreet PowerBook G3 Series
2G iPod shuffle

We’re less concerned about poor aesthetics than poor hardware, and since this is Low End Mac, we’ll ignore the Newtons and iPods. We will say this about the Apple III: It deserves to be first or second on the list. See The Ill-Fated Apple III by Jason Walsh and Apple III Chaos: What Happened When Apple Tried to Enter the Business Market for details.

1. Performa/LC x200 Series

Oobject completely missed the worst Macs ever, the Performa/LC x200 series, which included the 5200-5300 all-in-ones and the 6200-6320 modular models. These Macs were so bad that they are the one and only reason we came up with the Road Apple label. They are also the only Macs bad enough to deserve a four Road Apple rating.

In brief, Apple took the successful Performa/LC 630, a computer designed around the 68040 CPU, and cobbled a PowerPC processor onto it. (Unlike Oobject, we think the 630 was one of Apple’s best designs ever*) Anyhow, Apple put a 32-bit CPU on a 16-bit bus and created a monstrosity that worked okay as long as you didn’t use the modem or a network connection.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

Power Mac and Performa 5200-53xx & 6200-6320, Road Apples
Performa and Power Mac x200 Issues, Scott Barber

2. Performa 600

Oobject names the Mac IIvi as one of Apple’s worst ever, completely missing its far worse sibling, the Performa 600. After all, the 16 MHz IIvi performed exactly as well as you’d expect a 16 MHz Mac to perform.

The accelerator/cache slot in the Performa 600 was deliberately crippled so it couldn’t use a Level 2 cache card, thus the 32 MHz CPU on its 16 MHz system bus was always hungry for data. BYTE low-level benchmarks show the 20 MHz Mac IIsi outperforms the 32 MHz Performa 600 in five of six CPU tests – and the 16 MHz SE/30 even beat it in one.

Macintosh IIvx/Performa 600, Road Apples
PERFORMAnce Testing, Tom Thompson, TidBITS

3. Mac IIvx

The 32 MHz Mac IIvx is better than the Performa 600 for precisely two reasons, as they are virtually identical in all other respects. The Mac IIvx includes a math coprocessor and has a Level 2 cache, which made it much better than the Performa 600 – but still slower overall than the 25 MHz Mac IIci it was supposed to replace.

4. Macintosh TV

Likewise, there’s no mention of the black Macintosh TV on Oobject. This computer took an LC 550, added a TV tuner and remote control (along with a cable TV connector on the back) and then crippled the Macintosh side of things by leaving out the math coprocessor and absolutely limiting maximum RAM to 8 MB. (The LC 550 supports up to 36 MB.)

Another curiosity is that the Mac TV supports 16-bit video when watching TV, but the Mac side is limited to 8-bit graphics.

Macintosh TV, Road Apples
Mac TV: 12 Years Before the iMac G5 with Front Row, Tom Hormby
Macintosh TV, Wikipedia

5. ‘MainStreet’ PowerBook G3 Series

Take a great hardware design, eliminate the very important Level 2 cache, and you’ve got the idea behind the PowerBook G3 Series I 233 MHz. The 250 MHz model had only two important differences from the cacheless “MainStreet” PowerBook: a 7% faster CPU and 1 MB level 2 cache. That was enough to let it benchmark twice as high as the MainStreet model.

The later PowerBook G3 Series II 233 MHz, which includes a 512 KB level 2 cache, benchmarks 70% higher. It’s amazing how one little cost saving decision can cripple an otherwise good computer.

PowerBook G3 Series I 233 MHz, Road Apples
Is the MacBook’s Integrated Graphics Fudge too Much of a Compromise?, Charles W Moore, Road Warrior, MacOpinion. The author mentions his experience with both the cacheless MainStreet and later 233 MHz Series II model.

6. Classic II
7. Color Classic
8. LC
9. LC II

All four of these Macs suffer from the same fundamental flaw: They put a 32-bit 68020 CPU on a 16-bit data bus and arbitrarily limited maximum usable RAM to 10 MB. The biggest challenge is choosing which order to list them in.

This family of Macs began with the Macintosh LC in October 1990. It was the first low cost (hence LC) color Mac designed for the consumer market. It was the smallest desktop Mac prior to the Mac mini, and it was probably designed with the same idea: How small can we make a desktop computer?

Mac Forever Green Liner

Measuring 12.2″ wide, 15.3″ deep, and 2.9″ high, it was only a bit bigger than necessary to make room for two 3.5″ floppy drives (or one floppy and one 3.5″ hard drive), a power supply, a logic board, and a processor direct slot (PDS). It was a bit taller than necessary so users could access the floppy drive with a keyboard in front of the computer.

The LC was one of the first Macs with a microphone jack for audio input, and it had 2 MB of RAM, just barely enough to run System 7, which was just around the corner. And with a pair of 4 MB SIMMs, it could reach 10 MB.

Apple introduced a new graphics mode with the LC, 512 x 384 pixels, along with a 12″ RGB monitor that only supports that resolution. With the stock 256 KB of video memory, it supports 8-bit color (256 colors) at 512 x 384 and 4-bit color (just 16 colors) at the more traditional 640 x 480 resolution. With VRAM upgraded to 512 KB, it supports 8-bit color at 640 x 480 and 16-bit color (65,000+ colors) at 512 x 384.

The LC was designed for the home and education markets, and a dual floppy version was available only to educators. To help the Mac gain traction in schools, Apple produced an Apple IIe card for the LC’s lone processor direct slot (PDS). The card works with an Apple II 5.25″ floppy drive and requires running the LC at its 512 x 384 resolution.

The original LC performed adequately (it’s rated at about 75% the power of the 16 MHz Mac II because of it’s narrow data bus), and Apple reportedly sold a half-million.

The LC II, Color Classic, and Classic II are all designed around the same logic board, but they use the 68030 CPU and have 4 MB of RAM on the motherboard. Although they can have 12 MB of RAM installed, they can only access 10 MB.

The Classic II (October 1991) is the worst of this family for one reason: It’s the only one of these models with no expansion slot. It was the last Mac to use the “classic” form factor with a 9″ 1-bit black and white display, and it was intended as a replacement for the beloved SE/30, which has a 32-bit data bus, a PDS expansion slot, supports up to 128 MB of RAM, and offers far better overall performance.

Mac For Ever