What was the mysterious Apple game console that failed?
What company invested in doomed barcode reading technology?
Here are 15 pieces of “ground-breaking” tech that definitely didn’t have the impact
they were hoping for.
15 – Microsoft KIN • You may not remember the Microsoft KIN,
because it bombed extremely quickly.
• These stripped-down smartphones were meant to be a budget option for teens, with a focus
on social networking.
• Turns out though, teens weren’t huge fans of a smartphone that doesn’t allow
apps or games, and forces a two-year contract through Verizon.
14 – Samsung Galaxy Note 7 • Somehow, after about a decade of making
quality smartphones that challenged the mighty iPhone, Samsung took a step backward and produced
a device that explodes on its user’s face.
• Surprisingly, this didn’t go over well with users, who opted for devices that produced
a bit less shrapnel.
• People can be so picky about their tech sometimes.
13 - Nokia N-Gage • To be fair, Nokia had the right idea with
the N-Gage, and actually sold 3 million units in its lifetime.
• Cell phones were taking off, and handheld gaming devices were big, so they tried to
combine the two.
• Problem was, in trying to create a good phone/gaming device hybrid, they forgot to
make it a good phone… or a good gaming device… or to actually give it any good games.
12 – IBM PCjr • Back in the early 1980s, IBM was a leader
of PC technology in offices around the world.
But they wanted to get IBM PCs into people’s homes.
• Enter the IBM PCjr, the stripped down version of the full-size IBM PC that was intended
to do mostly the same stuff but at a fraction of the price and size.
• What IBM actually delivered was a device that did less stuff for more money.
Less than a year later, Apple released the Macintosh, a cultural icon that did everything
the PCjr was supposed to do.
11 – Amstrad Em@iler • Sir Alan Sugar will forever be known as
the man who fanatically went down with the ship trying to sell a landline telephone that
sends emails.
• Today, having a phone that sends email isn’t crazy at all… but a phone that charges
you money for something known as an “email call”?
That’s crazy.
• Despite a lack of sales, profits, interest, or any other measure of success, Amstrad developed
three generations of the Em@iler, none of which improved on the concept.
10 – Microsoft Zune • The Zune did nothing wrong.
No, really.
• Aside from some early software bugs, it was an effective and decent gadget.
• Its biggest problem was that it was trying to take market share away from the iPod at
a time when the iPod was absolutely untouchable.
It went up against a juggernaut and got immediately crushed.
9 – The Ouya • Hey kids!
Would you like to pay 99 dollars for a home console that lets you play games you’d normally
get on your cell phone for free?
• And would you like to play those games on a controller so terrible, you’d actually
rather use a phone as your controller?
• Great!
Go back in time and back the Ouya on Kickstarter, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
8 – Google Glass • Not everything Google touches turns to
gold.
Some of them turn into Google Glass.
• It seems the world wasn’t ready for dumb-looking glasses that cost 1500 dollars
and allowed Google to move its data collection empire into the real world.
• Despite weak sales and a general sense of discomfort, Google has threatened to re-release
Google Glass “when it’s ready.”
No telling if WE’ll be ready for IT though.
7 - HD-DVD • Toward the end of the last decade, when
terms like “HD” and “1080p” came into our lives, there was a battle between new
competing video formats.
• The contestants were Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
One of them still exists, the other halted production in 2008.
• Toshiba lost nearly $1 billion supporting HD-DVD before discontinuing the format.
6 – Segway • Steve Jobs was certainly a visionary who
changed the world, but he was also the guy who said the Segway would be “as a big a
deal as the PC.”
• The Segway was supposed to revolutionise the way people get around in their daily lives,
but now it’s just a visual gag for making fun of mall cops and gimmick tours.
5 - Betamax • Betamax was basically the HD-DVD of the
80’s.
• An arguably just-as-good or better alternative to VHS, Sony’s Betamax format suffered from
a fatal flaw – a one hour runtime limit.
• Since VHS tapes could hold 2 hours instead of one, most entire movies fit on a single
tape, and it was more readily embraced by retailers and consumers alike.
4 – Apple Pippin • Did you know Apple and Bandai co-developed
and released a dedicated video game console in 1995 with a wireless controller?
• Yeah, neither did anyone else.
Including most game developers.
• Among other things, a $599 price tag at launch – twice that of the Sony Playstation,
doomed the console despite some ahead-of-its-time console features like a built-in modem for
online play.
3 – Nintendo Virtual Boy • Nintendo’s most famous console flop
saw less than two dozen games released for it before being discontinued.
• VR has long been a fascination for the video game industry, but the Virtual Boy is
one of the first in a long line of attempts to give people headaches.
• It may have been worth rethinking the red-LED-on-black-background motif as well.
2 – Apple Newton • A lot of tech failures are basically the
result of a company having a good idea, but introducing it before the public is ready,
or before existing technology can actually make it useful.
• That’s basically where the Apple Newton ended up, as an Apple tablet that was bulky,
unwieldy, and didn’t do enough to justify carrying it around everywhere.
• The Newton wasn’t exactly terrible, many consider it to have been good technology
that was just mismanaged.
• But it’s still remembered as a colossal flop with a troubled development.
1 – CueCat Barcode Reader • Okay, that thing I just said about technology
flops being good ideas with bad timing?
• That doesn’t apply here.
Sometimes people just try to solve problems that don’t exist.
• Here’s what you’re supposed to do with the CueCat Barcode Reader: Take the scanner
and scan a specially-marked barcode, then plug the device into your computer, and WHOOOOOOA!
It takes you to a website!
• Nobody was ever able to explain how this was supposed to be easier than typing a link
into your browser, but Wired and Business Week bought in and started printing CueCat
codes in their magazines.
• What makes this even more embarrassing is that Digital Convergence, the company behind
CueCat, shipped huge amounts of these devices out for free, in hopes of getting people on
board.
• Naturally, this made the whole experiment even more expensive, but not any more successful.
What do YOU think was the biggest technology flop?
Let us know in the comments and we’ll pin our favourite to the top.