The Biggest tech fails of 2017

Snapchat spectacles

This was the Microsoft Kim of 2017, the ‘Zune player’ of the year, the amazon fire phone of accessories, the apple book of sunglasses and the Achilles heel of an otherwise strong app. As far as failures go, this one was right up there.

And a lot like the products I have mentioned, this was not a bad product per se. It was reasonably well-made, looked trendy and was designed to work with one of the biggest apps in smartphone markets. Not a bad bet.

But numerous inconsistencies marred the experience of avid snapchat users. The camera integration and uploads did not work as intended. The price was pretty steep for what was offered. As per the last report I read there were thousands lying around with no takers. This after the price has dropped multiple times.

Honourable mentions:

Juicero - I don’t know what they were thinking. Like a juice pack presser for $400? really?

Jibo - The incredibly cute and almost human-like companion robot. Except that it has very little extension possible and does all its searches are through Bing. Yes Bing. Jibo is definitely a great piece of hardware put together quite creatively. But the standard for home pods and companions (Alexa, google home) have left Jibo far far behind. What is more? It cost $900 when it was crowd-funded back in 2015.

If the software can be updated to use Google, maybe this would still make sense. But screen should have definitely been an OLED. No reason to do what they did.

Here is what Linus had to say :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1RASlbIIVc

Essential phone - OK! put down your clubs and pitchforks. Hey you! Yes you! stop! Don’t you dare burn my effigy! This was more of a let down than an actual fail. Priced correctly *cough* Oneplus *cough* this would have made it to many ‘Phone of the year’ lists. But terribly priced and badly marketed, this one ended being a flashy miss for the makers. Hopefully they have enough juice in their accounts and much less-ego to make the next one fly. I really loved this baby.

Photo courtesy - Theverge, Video from Linus Media Group.