David Court
The past decade has seen huge advances in the world of technology. Apple has led the way with smartphones since it launched arguably the most important product of the decade way back when it debuted the iPhone 4.
Since then we’ve seen the rise of the smart home, streaming services like Netflix and Spotify have exploded, and with 5G landing just in the nick of time, some of us can now enjoy 500 megabits per second mobile download speeds. It’s been an incredible decade.
It’s not all been one big success story, though – the past 10 years have also seen some epic flops too. Here are my personal favourites:
Windows 8
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. And Windows 8 definitely wasn’t. Looking back, it’s hard to understand why Microsoft felt it needed to make such a drastic change to its already-successful
BlackBerry
This one feels a bit harsh. BlackBerry sold a lot of phones between 2010 and 2020. However, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer’s fall from grace has been spectacular.
In 2011, BlackBerry was the world’s biggest phone company. In fact, in 2011 the company shipped a massive 50 million devices. To put that into context, it took Apple four years and three iPhone launches to break 50 million smartphone sales.
However, BlackBerry’s market share has dropped from a healthy 20 per cent in 2009, to 0.1 per cent in 2019. And that’s a flop in anyone’s book.
Google Glass
This was hilarious. My former boss spent £1000 (roughly NZ$2000) on a pair
Remember Windows Phone? No. Probably not. Nobody owned a Windows Phone. And that was the problem.
Despite the huge unpopularity of the mobile operating system and the tiny market share, Microsoft still decided to chase mobile with its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s phone business in 2014.
Like Windows 8, Windows Phone was a horrible world of colourful tiles, gestures and no apps. The hardware that supported it, mainly Nokia (hence the acquisition), was middling at best too.
Samsung Galaxy Fold
Hubris is a condition all technology companies suffer from. But Samsung took the gold medal this year when it crowed about the ground-breaking
The biggest flop of the decade has to be Huawei’s ongoing saga with the US. Here we have a series of technologies Huawei has spent years, and billions of dollars, developing. All ruined (in the Western world) by President Donald Trump in less than a day.
The problem? Trump and his security experts say the company’s ties to the Chinese government are dangerous for the US and its allies.
So the president placed Huawei on an ‘‘Entity List’’ that bans all US companies from working with the Chinese technology giant.
3D printing (for consumers)
Weren’t we all supposed to have a 3D printer in our homes by now? There are several reasons why we don’t.
It’s a lot of work. To create an object, you either have to download an existing template or design your own. Which is impossible if you’re not a 3D designer. And it can take a full week to print a pretty minor object. After all that, there’s still no guarantee the endproduct will be perfect.
The printers produce a lot of fumes, making it impractical to simply leave them running in the background at home when you need a new coathanger or Monopoly piece. And they cost thousands of dollars.