Who's Afraid of Steve Jobs?

Two decades ago, when started evaluating treadmills, it built a test machine it called the Johnny Walker. A drum-like steel cylinder studded with green rubber balls, the Johnny Walker spins above the rolling belts of its victims, pummeling them with blows meant to simulate the footsteps of a 170-lb. runner. In the early days, after a few hours of insistent pounding, some treadmills caught fire.

The fitness equipment industry has since figured out that it can't incinerate its customers—and the Johnny Walker keeps racking up the miles. It recently beat one treadmill so badly that the machine's motor fell out. The manufacturer suffered the consequences in the pages of the magazine, earning a rare yellow box with a check mark, which is even more dreaded than the more frequently seen black "blob" for poor performance in ' unique graphical rating system. (Total approval, as longtime readers know, is a red blob completely filled in.) "We gave that one a 'don't buy' rating," says Rich Handel, one of the magazine's 107 professional testers.