Oliver Haslam on December 30, 2019, 11:46 pm

The Best And Worst Apple Products Of The Decade 2010-2019

As we edge closer to the end of another decade and start out into a whole new one, it’s natural to look back. The last decade has been a big one for Apple and there have been some great products released.

But like all big companies, not all of Apple’s releases have gone to plan. And some have downright gone wrong. Below, I’m going to run through five of the best and worst products Apple has released during the last ten years in my personal opinion. They’re in no particular order, but they’re all either winners or losers for their own reasons.

With that out of the way, let’s start with what went right for Apple from 2010 onwards.

5 Best Apple Products

2010 – iPad

As with the iPhone, the iPad wasn’t the first tablet on the market. But again, like the iPhone, it was the first to get any traction. Arguably, it’s still the only tablet anyone should buy and that isn’t likely to change any time soon given the mess the competition is in. The current round of iPads are the best ever and cover most price points, too.

2017 – iPhone X

The biggest change to the iPhone since the original iPhone was released ten years before it, the iPhone X is how phones now look. The removal of the Home button meant the arrival of Face ID which is still unsurpassed. And even though plenty of people complained about that notch initially, nobody even notices it today. And it’s still there two years later.

2011 – MacBook Air refresh

While everyone loved that the MacBook Air was super small and light, nobody actually wanted to use one. It was slow in the extreme, but that all changed mid-way through 2011. Faster processors, SSD storage, and a better display meant that this was finally a machine people could use. The 2011 refresh set the groundwork for the MacBook Air to become the defacto MacBook option for most people today.

2015 – Apple Watch

It says a lot about the 2015 Apple Watch that four years later nothing has come close to competing. Sure, the newer models are much improved but the OG Apple Watch remains the standard that no other company has been able to beat. And it made the smartwatch into something “normal” people wore and made its dominance in 2019 possible.

2016 – AirPods

AirPods have become Apple’s biggest success story since the first iPhone and with the arrival of the AirPods Pro that’s a story that isn’t going to change any time soon. Instant pairing and easy device switching is something only Beats – now owned by Apple and using the same tech – can compete with. AirPods remain almost magical to use.

5 Worst Apple Products

Everything with the Butterfly Keyboard

Yeah, that’s right. Any notebook that shipped with the butterfly keyboard. You can kind of forgive the first one, but after that it should have been canned, and canned hard. Failure rates were awful, it felt bad to type on, and the fact Apple still ships notebooks with that keyboard is a travesty.

AirPower

No, it didn’t actually get released, but that’s really the point, isn’t it? Apple made a big deal about the AirPower charging pad when it announced the iPhone X in 2017, and then it went quiet, very quiet. Ultimately Apple canceled AirPower earlier this year because it couldn’t quite make it work properly. Which is something it should have checked before it announced it during an iPhone event.

2012 – Apple Maps

Boy was this a calamity. Apple ditched Google Maps and went with its own solution with iOS 6. And it was so bad that iOS head Scott Forstall left Apple, although it was never confirmed why. His reluctance to put his name to a public apology about Apple Maps was said to be part of the reason. And we wouldn’t want our name anywhere near that thing either.

2010 – iTunes Ping

Remember Apple’s iTunes Ping? No?

Exactly.

2015 – Apple Watch Edition

Yes, we just said that the Apple Watch was a big hit during the last decade; and it was, but the Apple Watch Edition wasn’t. Costing huge sums of money and made of gold, it was never really going to be a big seller. But reports say that literally nobody bought one and Apple ended up canceling the whole thing eventually. Turns out nobody wants to pay thousands of dollars for a watch that, at the time, couldn’t even tell the time without being woken up.