These 3 pieces of old Apple tech have overstayed their welcome

Apple is known for advancing technology, but it still has evidence in its lineup of clinging to the past.

- DAN MOREN

Apple has a reputation as an uncompromising driver of new technology. Look no further than the classic example of shipping the original iMac (fave.co/3sfjG63) without a floppy drive or legacy ports, or designing the iPhone without a hardware keyboard, or even killing off the iPod mini to make way for the iPod nano (fave.co/ 3wR5Rgy). The company certainly puts forth an image of pushing technology forward without dwelling on the past.

While those examples might get a lot of attention, the Apple of these days is a bigger, more ponderous organization, a battleship that can't simply turn on a dime. As a result, the move to any new technology takes time, and often what came before isn't excised in months, or sometimes even years.

As much as Apple might like to see itself as an unstoppable force barreling ever forward, you don't have to look too far through its lineup to see plenty of places where it's still clinging to the past, even if it's out of sheer practicality.

YOU CAN'T GO HOME BUTTON AGAIN

One of the original trademarks of the iPhone was its single front-facing button. The Home button evolved, gaining a Touch ID sensor and eventually transforming from a physical button into a capacitive sensor with haptics. But its demise was heralded by the introduction of the iPhone X design with its edge-toedge display and Face ID.

But that design debuted in November 2017, almost seven years ago now. And while the Home button has been gradually removed from both the iPhone and iPad lines, it lives on even to this day. The third-generation iPhone SE (fave.co/42T1E88), which came out in 2022, remains a product in Apple's lineup, proudly sporting the classic design ushered in by 2016's iPhone 7.