The Year 2012 had some pretty impressive treats for the fans of Tech and Gadgets but it was also the year when many Tech Giants took great gambles… and lost.  Below is a list of Tech Biggest Flops of 2012.

 

1.  BlackBerry 10

There was a time when they were everywhere and it looked like you couldn’t put them down. But now it looks like those days are over.  It was told that the Blackberry 10 platform was supposed to be launched in 2012 and it will a comeback for the Blackberry Brand. Research in Motion (RIM) kept delaying it and now it has been pushed to it’s newest release date Jan. 30, 2013.

When the Blackberry 10 was first announced, there was excitement all around but now except for Blackberry faithful there isn’t much buzz. Let’s see what the reaction is when it releases next year.

 

2.  Sean Parker’s AirTime

This one turned out be a Dud. Sean Parker, former president of Facebook and founder of Napster and  Shawn Fanning, co-founder of napster, boasted about his startup known as Airtime. According to Sean Parker, Airtime was a competitor to  Chatroulette, a place to meet new people via text-chat, webcam and mic.

Airtime had a stagnant user base despite its $33 million funding and several celebrity endorsements from many big shots like Jim Carrey, Alicia Keys, Jimmy Fallon,  Julia Louis Dreyfus. Airtime never took of and as of  October 2012, its getting only 10,000 active users per day. Despite that Low performance, Parker still maintains that the product will transform how we communicate.

We’ll see.

 

3.  Microsoft So.cl

As if there wasn’t enough Social Networking sites on the internet, Microsoft came up with yet another. It’s called So.cl. So.cl which is pronounced “social” “allows you to express and share your ideas through rich post collages comprised of images, links, captions and videos.  Although you can’t necessarily say it’s dead because it’s still in the beta stage and also Microsoft din’t publisied it well enough like Google pushed Google +.

As expected there is a lack of enthusiasm for yet another Social Network. So, Let’s see what Happens to So.cl in the future.

 

4.  Google Nexus Q

Google’s unique media-streaming orb was first shown and given to attendees at Google I/O Conference 2012. Google Nexus Q was a set-top box in the shape of a orb that streams music and movies to your home theater from Google Play — and Google Play only.

High Prices and Lack of Functionality doomed the device, however, Google realising soon that it had a dud in its hands quietly pulled the Plug on the project and those who had pre-ordered it got their money back as well as a Free Nexus Q.

 

5. Apple Maps

The Apple Maps has to be the biggest Tech Flop of 2012 hands down. It was a Rare instance when Apple had hyped a Product and it turned out to be a Big Disappointment and it ended up Apple’s CEO Tim Cook publicily apologising for it saying “”We screwed up.”

Apple Maps has been mocked everywhere thoroughly since it was discovered that it was broken. It has been ridiculed everywhere– on Twitter, on late-night shows, on a mesmerizing Tumblr and elsewhere — that it seems redundant to thrash it again here.

All you really need to know is that after testing out Apple Maps for a few months, 10 million people chose to download Google’s Maps app in just under 48 hours.

So, looks like the years it took Google to assemble and fine tune their product could not be replicated.

 

Source:[Huffington Post][Yahoo][Google]