Flashback: Recent Episodes
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Not all tech products succeed once on the market, and some are killed off with little warning. Flashback looks back at failed tech products to see what we can learn by studying their demises. Hosted by Quinn Nelson and Stephen Hackett.
IBM quickly lost control of the market it had helped create, going from industry-leader to quietly exiting the personal computer business in just a couple of decades.
The first IBM PC kicked off what would be a line of computers that would be sold through the 1980s. This week, Quinn and Stephen hit the high points of this beige wave.
With its PC built, IBM needed to find an operating system that would run on it. Its choice would change the computer industry forever.
The IBM Personal Computer was developed in a shockingly short period of time. This time, Quinn and Stephen discuss the machine's hardware as well as some of the company's earlier attempts at personal computers.
This season on Flashback, Quinn and Stephen are covering the rise — and fall — of IBM's PC business, but first: some background on the enormous company that Apple and so many others lived in the shadow of back in the 80s.
The story of Windows Vista is a complicated one. Born from a long and troubled development cycle, it wasn't free of problems at launch, but hardware OEMs and others didn't do much to help its reputation.
In the early 1980s, Apple launched a computer with a GUI and mouse ... that wasn't the Macintosh.
Google has a knack for shutting down products. This episode, Stephen and Quinn talk about a handful of them.
A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion. A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion. A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion. A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion.
Are you getting it? These are not three devices.
It's two devices, and we're calling them your Palm phone and Foleo.
A year and a half before the iPhone was introduced, Apple took the stage to announce a very, very different product: the iTunes phone, built in partnership with Motorola and Cingular.
This week, Quinn and Stephen talk about one of the world's first cool phones, and how its parent company was bent on destroying its good name.
In an effort to keep Microsoft from controlling the PC software industry, in the 1980s, IBM created OS/2, an operating system meant to give its computers a competitive advantage. Unable to do this alone, Big Blue turned to an unlikely company to help build it.
In 2008, a vision for a simple, browser-based tablet as born. Just a few years later, after failed lawsuits and rip-off products, no one had anything to show for their work.
This time, Quinn and Stephen look back — in 3D! — at the Amazon Fire Phone. Between its operating system, unusual gesture system and a price that was way too high, it was dead on arrival. After that, the guys go shopping for each other, picking out some unusual products that bear Amazon's name today.
In 2012, Google announced a sphere-shaped media player that was meant to be used with a TV or sound system. It was a disaster. However, nearly a decade later, set-top boxes are nearly everywhere. How did the market move past a weird Google product to offer a wide range of compelling products?
The smartwatch movement didn't start with Apple or Google, but a little company named Pebble. Through a series of hugely successful Kickstarters, the company put out several well-reviewed products before being steamrolled by the platform-makers.
The Apple II was a big hit, but before the Macintosh took over, Cupertino shipped a couple of duds, the worst of which was the ill-fated (and kinda melty) Apple III.
Microsoft was late to the smartphone party, and its first entrance, the Kin, was designed for teens and young adults who didn't want or need an iPhone, Android phone or Blackberry. The only problem? That audience didn't really exist.
Started by former members of Apple's leadership team, Be was formed to take on the Mac and other computers of the mid-90s. The company wrote its own operating system and shipped dual-CPU towers before failing to be bought by Apple and slowly fading away.
On this episode, Quinn and Stephen explore three failed game consoles: the Apple Pippin, Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Ouya.
With its webOS hardware, including the Pre, Pixi and more, Palm (and later HP) tried to take on the giants of the early smartphone wars. While webOS was hugely innovative, it wasn't enough to break into the most important market in consumer electronics history.
Electric cars may seem like a 21st century phenomenon, but they are far from modern invention. Along the winding path to the present was the GM EV1, the first purpose-designed electric vehicle. It went on sale in 1996, but within a decade, General Motors had recalled and crushed almost all of them.
In the 2000s, the iPod was a true juggernaut, simply dominating the portable music player market. Microsoft wanted a piece of the pie, and launched the Zune 30, which eventually spread into a line of both hardware products and software services. However, it barely made a dent in Apple's commanding lead. This episode, Quinn and Stephen look into why the folks from Seattle failed so hard at taking on the iPod.
Today, Apple is well known for its mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, but in the 1990s, the Macintosh-only company invented the Personal Digital Assistant. Its PDA was the Newton, a family of handwriting-based devices that promised mobile productivity. However, after five short years, the whole line was cancelled. This episode, Stephen and Quinn revisit the Newton and talk about what — and who — killed it.
On this season of Flashback, we’ll be looking at examples of failed tech products or companies.