Những sản phẩm Apple vô dụng nhất bạn nên tránh – Số tháng Tám trên tạp chí Augustman Malaysia

Những sản phẩm Apple không hữu ích nhất mà bạn nên tránh xa – Augustman Malaysia #AugustmanMalaysia

Không phải mọi thứ được sản xuất từ phòng thiết kế của Cupertino đều là vàng. (CẢNH BÁO: Dành cho các fan cuồng Apple. Nhưng hãy đọc tiếp nhé.) Cuối cùng, Apple chỉ là một công ty công nghệ, giống như Samsung hay Oppo. Chúng tôi đồng ý rằng iPhone, Mac và dòng đồng hồ thông minh của Apple rất tuyệt vời và nên bỏ qua những quyết định không mấy thông minh mà công ty đã đưa ra trong lịch sử của mình. iPod socks, Apple Newton và bàn phím Butterfly trên MacBook nổi tiếng là những ngoại lệ so với hồ sơ thương hiệu tuyệt vời khác biệt được sáng tạo bởi cựu Giám đốc điều hành và người sáng lập Steve Jobs. Tuy nhiên, không thể phủ nhận rằng tính kiêng kỵ cố chấp của Apple thường mang tới những điều tồi tệ cho công chúng và trong những tình huống như vậy, những sai lầm như Apple Polishing Cloth xảy ra. Việc xây dựng và quảng bá giá trị thương hiệu ấn tượng là tốt nhưng không đâu nguyên tắc thương mại quy định cho người dẫn đầu thị trường bán các sản phẩm vô ích với giá cắt cổ. Ngay cả vào ngày nay, Apple vẫn tiếp tục bán một số sản phẩm không hữu ích mà không ai yêu cầu. Ngay cả khi họ yêu cầu, cách thực hiện của Apple đơn giản không phải là tốt nhất. Hãy cùng nhau ngồi xuống và lục soát bộ sưu tập hiện nay của Apple để tìm ra những thất bại mà thương hiệu có trụ sở tại Cupertino đang phải đối mặt. Hãy xem xét những sản phẩm Apple không hữu ích nhất mà chúng tôi khuyến nghị tránh xa.

Sản phẩm Apple tồi tệ nhất đang bán ra vẫn đơn giản, thực sự, vô ích

#Apple #AppleProducts #UselessProducts #AvoidApple #Technology #TechProducts #AppleFailures #AppleMarketing #TechIndustry #Innovations #ConsumerMarket #SmartDevices #Gadgets #AugustmanMalaysia

Nguồn: https://www.augustman.com/my/gear/tech/most-useless-apple-products/

Not everything that comes out from Cupertino’s design labs is gold. (TRIGGER ALERT for Apple fanboys. But please read on.) At the end of the day, Apple is just a technology firm, like Samsung or Oppo.

We agree that the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch series are so good on their own that one must overlook the not-so-clever decisions the company has taken in its history. The iPod socks, Apple Newton and the infamous Butterfly keyboard on the MacBook are the anomalies to an otherwise glorious brand profile curated by ex-CEO and founder Steve Jobs.

However, there’s no denying that Apple’s unwavering ego often brings the worst to the public and in such scenarios, blunders like the Apple Polishing Cloth happen. It is great to build up and brandish a dominant brand value but nowhere do the laws of trade dictate the market leader to sell useless products at exorbitant prices.

Even in today’s age, Apple continues to sell a couple of useless products that nobody asked for. Even if they did ask, Apple’s implementation simply hasn’t been the best. Take the HomePod speaker as the latest example – a great speaker that struggles with the smart bits. Apple being Apple, it continues selling it without fixing its biggest flaw (something we discuss at length later in this story).

Hence, we sat down and scourged Apple’s current-day catalogue to find out the failures that the Cupertino-based brand has on its hands currently. Take a look at the most useless Apple products that we recommend steering away from.

Worst Apple products on sale that are simply, well, useless

Jump To / Table of Contents

Price: MYR 99

Nobody believed their eyes when they saw Apple releasing a cleaning cloth with an exorbitant price tag! Advertised as the best way to clean your Apple device, the Apple Polishing Cloth is essentially a regular microfibre hankie stamped with an Apple logo. You can get good quality microfibre cleaning cloth for one-fourth of what Apple charges!

There’s no doubt that the Apple Polishing Cloth might be the best cleaning cloth for your prized Apple products. However, it is pointless to pay such a premium for a piece of cloth that costs a lot less without an Apple logo. 

02

iMac (hold the pitchforks and hear us out first)

Price: MYR 6,299

The iMac established Apple as we know it today. In its latest guise, it has become a powerhouse for someone seeking a home/office desktop setup. However, it is quite pointless as a personal computer in 2024. 

While it appears to be a big and mighty computer, the iMac is essentially a MacBook Air with a massive 24-inch display stuck on a desk stand and a power cable. Having a desktop PC based on a laptop’s architecture is pointless since you pay for the inconvenience of a stuck machine to gain a lot of performance. A much lower-priced MacBook Air can function better as a home/work machine. With a great battery life, it can even work when there’s no power. The ability to cast itself to a better quality high-resolution display makes the MacBook Air a superior all-rounder all-in-one PC.

Even if you insist on having a desktop setup made by Apple, what’s wrong with the Mac Mini? With the same processor as the iMac, you experience no loss in performance. The lower unit price lets you invest in better-quality monitors and peripherals, thereby helping you amp up the experience.  

Price: MYR 319

The Magic Mouse has been around for years and we still wonder what’s so magical about it! 

While it looks pretty on the desk for a wireless mouse, the Magic Mouse is inconvenient in most ways. The sleek profile of the mouse makes it difficult to grip and the lack of clicky buttons denies any satisfactory feedback. The underbelly Lightning charging port makes it useless while you are charging the device. The rechargeable battery is good as a concept but once it dies, you have to ditch the mouse and buy a new one. 

Other than looking pretty on the desk, the Magic Mouse is another useless Apple product.  

Price: MYR 699

The Apple TV 4K is currently one of the most useless products that the company makes. It holds a lot of potential but in an age of smart TVs, this small and pricey TV box hardly makes sense. Apple advertises it as a one-stop solution for accessing all your Apple multimedia subscription services like Apple TV+, Apple Music and Apple Arcade. It even offers AirPlay for iPhones to easily stream content from their screens. 

However, the Apple TV+ app is now available to download for free on Google, Samsung, Amazon and LG’s TV operating systems. This means you can have the Apple TV 4K’s primary feature available on most new TVs. The same can be said for Apple Music. A lot of smart TVs from Samsung and a few other brands now support AirPlay streaming as standard. You do miss out on Apple Arcade and Health+ features but how many people buy a 4K TV streaming box for these?

We don’t!

Price: MYR 29.90 per month

The Apple Arcade subscription is another useless Apple offering that should be retired gracefully. Introduced as Apple’s unique take on the growing mobile gaming industry a few years ago, the Apple Arcade service has barely managed to produce any memorable video games. Whether you try it on your iPhone or Mac, the games are far from impressive and barely give any incentives to come back.

With console games now being ported to high-end iPhones and Macs directly, the need to pay for Apple Arcade’s disappointing collection of video games diminishes. 

Price: MYR 879

Everybody knows that Apple’s AirPods are among the most overpriced true wireless earbuds in the industry today. The AirPods Pro 2nd Gen sort of justifies the premium with its impeccable audio tuning and a class-leading Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) system. The dated AirPods 2nd Gen, however, are poor value compared to what the competition sells. As for the AirPods 3rd Gen, it gets worse.

Apple assumes that paying MYR 879 for a pair of TWS earbuds is still not enough to pamper your ears with ANC and any form of passion noise isolation – features that are now standard in entry-level TWS earbuds costing less than half of the AirPods 3rd Gen’s price! You don’t even get the MagSafe wireless charging as standard! All Apple’s marketing team does is sell a basic pair of TWS earbuds at an exorbitant price.

If you are determined to get a new pair of AirPods, we recommend spending more for the AirPods Pro 2nd Gen.

Price: MYR 149

Can you pinpoint a single human who has benefitted from an Apple AirTag? Stalkers and car thieves need not raise their hands.

Jokes aside, the AirTag from Apple made big promises but over its lifespan, created more troubles for Apple CEO Tim Cook and his team of geniuses. The ‘stalking capability’ made the AirTag a seriously flawed product in an age where digital privacy is largely a myth. Despite Apple’s efforts to patch the gaping holes by partnering with Google for universal stray AirTag detection, this button-shaped tracker hasn’t done most people good. You may argue about its usefulness for people having a knack for losing things but this is a big price to pay for compromising privacy.

Price: MYR 1,549

The HomePod in its second generation evolved as a smart speaker and yet, it continues to be a pointless product in Apple’s arsenal. 

While the aural capabilities of the HomePod are great, its Achilles heel continues to be Siri. Despite its evolving intelligence, Siri is simply not as good a voice assistant as Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. The arrival of Apple Intelligence isn’t going to affect the HomePod in any way and that makes it useless in an already dying industry. 

If you have to have a HomePod, try the more affordable HomePod Mini and save money for a few extra years of Apple Music subscription. 

Price: From MYR 2,249

You didn’t see an iPhone making it to this list, did you? 

As much as we like an affordable and compact iPhone, we believe there are better ways to milk money from this formula than the current generation iPhone SE. Not only is it useless in 2024, but the higher price Apple commands for this relic of the past is criminal!

The iPhone SE 3rd Gen has a paltry LCD display with humongous bezels, an average rear camera, terrible battery life and a user experience that leaves a foul taste. For similar prices, we have Android phones with cutting-edge displays, lightning-fast charging speeds, better battery life and nicer designs. 

What’s contradicting even more is the endless deals raining on older flagship iPhones. You can often get factory-fresh iPhone 12 or iPhone 13 for the price of an iPhone SE from third-party vendors. Now we don’t need to justify how an iPhone 13 (or even an iPhone 12) is better on any given day than the iPhone SE, do we?

(Hero and Featured Image Credits: Courtesy Murat Çorlu via Unsplash)

Note:

The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Which is the most useless Apple product of all time?

The Apple Polishing Cloth is one of the most useless Apple products of all time.

Which is the worst Apple product in history?

The Apple Newton, a series of personal digital assistants produced between 1993 and 1998, is considered one of the worst Apple products in history.


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