Worst gadget flops of all time?
By Peter Rojas 
posted Jul 6th 2005 4:25PM
posted Jul 6th 2005 4:25PM
Alright, punks, it's time to dig deep and spit out your nominations for the worst gadget flops of all time (and we promise we're not just doing this because it's been a slow news week, either). We're defining "worst" and "gadget" and "flop" pretty broadly, so all we're asking is that if you nominate something you include a couple of sentences explaining why your choice is especially worthy of disdain. We'll take the best entries and put 'em together as a feature next week, cool?
Gameboy 3D? :D
woops...wasn't it called virtual boy or something?
My vote goes for Circuit City's DivX players. Not only did it flop, but it caused thousands (including me) to never step foot in a CC again.
one time I passed out after drinking grain alcohol on railroad tracks -- does that count?
owen
Atari Jaguar:
Hardly any games. Graphics underwhelmed. But my biggest problem with it is the numberpad on the controller. What the heck was that on there for? So it could double as a telephone? Argh. (3DO sucked, too but it was not nearly as bad)
One word: Divx.
Not the MPEG4 format, but the whole Divx "DVD rental replacement" thing. Remember? You buy the Divx discs put them in your special Divx player and you could use them for a couple of days/plays. Then you had to pay a fee to watch them again after that. Or you could just pay a large fee up front for unlimited viewings. I can't remember when i have seen a technological idea rejected so whole heartedly.
Audrey.
My vote is for the original Nokia N-Gage, the "side-taking taco phone". Also, the fact that you had to remove the battery to access the memory/game card slot.
Nintendo Powerglove.
The Sony Network Walkman. It couldn't even play MP3's!
The Sinclair c5.
A spectacularly bad excecution of an excellent, forward thinking idea introduced by a genius of a man.
In a nutshell it was an electric bike/personal transport type device released in the UK in the 80's by Alan Sinclair, who had made a fortune with his companies selling home computers and pocket calculators.
The problems with the device were many. The riding position required you to sit down and steer using a pair of handlebars under your legs. The rider sat so low that you couldn't be seen by cars, and you were exposed to the elements - this is in the UK, remember.
It was the original Segway, I remember thinking they were wickedly cool at the time.
MINI DISC
I would have to say Sega CDX
I'll go with a future flop: hd-dvd
The Solar Sail
Probably the "Smartboard"
A lot of school use these but they are completely useless. They are not sensitive enough to work. My school has one in each class and they are brand new and only half of them actually work. Also, they are too delicate to be used around a large amount of people.
CueCat Really, what exactly where they thinking.
Sony A-Trac players.
Any mp3 player other than the iPod. Because, you know, why even bother?
Sega Dreamcast
that tv watch from the 80's that sharp had, couldn't get reception and what you could see was so small you couldn't make anything out
Seriously, though, the first thing that really did pop into my head when I saw that downed freight train was the Virtual Boy. That thing is pretty iconic for some pretty major floppage in the consumer tech space.
How about releasing Transformer Decepticon Soundwave as "not" a working radio (like the Japanese edition).
http://www.plumed-serpent.com/SoundwaveJapanBox.jpg
He would have been all the way live. Flippity, FLOP-ity, floo.
Depending on how broad your definition of gadget is, how about the DeLorean?
Here's mine:
Nintendo's R.O.B. & 64DD
Tiger Game.com
Tablet PC (This and past implementations anyway)
o o o o no Beta MAX
Coleco Adam.
- Jon
A toss up between the N-Gage and the Cue Cat.
One word: Modo
The Flowbee:
In case people may not know what this is, it's a vacuum cleaner, hair attachment to give that "precision haircut" without the stylist.
The concept itself was cool, but the fact that you used a vacuum cleaner to cut hair probably turned alot of people off. Surprisingly they still sell it at http://www.flowbee.com but come on, are there really people still buying it?
I'm sure countless beauty colleges across the U.S. and abroad, have nothing good to say about this device. (Although, it probably gives a better hair cut than most beauty college students ;)
SyQuest media removeable disks... never sure if removeable was a reference to the disk or the media that it randomly erased.
I'll give another vote for Divx too.
Gasoline engines? Over a long term they've been highly inefficient and grossly polutant.
VHS-mini, or VHS-C or whatever that was called.
the original Disk Camera (film version, looked like a viewmaster reel)
8track tapes
Apple newton??
sliced bread
The self destructing DVD's that would ... well, self destruct like 24 hours after you rented them and opened the package
I don't know wtf John Doe is talking about: smart boards are in almost every classroom at my high school and the teachers freaking love them. They replace chalkboards/whiteboards and save notes in an electronic format.
but the worst flop: definitely MINIDISC
fit like 10 cds on a minidisc? my ass! you had to sit there and record them like a cassette tape
Apple Newton
Windows ME
Apple Servers
I think the iomega hipzip was a particularly abysmal shitstorm in the vast sea of shitty gadgets...the 40mb mini disk style things were whack....when they first came out my dad went out and bought (with good intentions and misguided optimism) like 5 of them for all my familly....it was a novel concept...but who wants an mp3 player that is not only huge, butt-ugly, fully & constantly skippable but only holds 40mb worth of mp3's anyway? not me, sir. :p
Strategic Defense Initiative / STARWARS / SDI
The only way Ronald Regan could have messed up any more with this project, is if he penned Epp 1 & 2 for Lucas's movies...
My Vote is for the Divx Player. That sucked hard!!!
Sony IP Series Handycam
Apple Newton
Windows ME
Apple Servers
By a long shot it has to be COLD FUSION:
Cold fusion is the generation of anomalous excess heat at low temperatures. It began with experiments using an immersed palladium electrode activated in heavy water. In March, 1989, when the achievement of cold fusion was first reported in the press, electrochemically induced reactions were very difficult to reproduce.
What about Microsoft BOB?!!? That sucked big time!
MPX!
I'm thinking that the old school air conditioned suit takes the cake. Like the one on this page.
http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/titles/pd_nr_031.php
Its not the fact that an air conditioned suit is a bad idea, rather...pumps on the bottom of shoes with tubes going everywhere doesn't appear to be the best way to go about it.
cybiko
sun glasses with a tv screen in them
zip drives
This is an easy one. If the concept of 'gadget' is very broad, then it has to be the 'unsinkable' SS Titanic. The word 'Titanic' is interchanged with spetacular failures nearly one hundred years after the event.
i'll second 3com's audrey. does anyone even have one of these? my guess is 3com must've dumped all the unsold units into the canyon w/ atari's E.T. cartridges.
or how about that cuecat scanner? now there was a great idea.. hey, i've got like all these barcodes on my cereal boxes and shit that i couldn't care less about.. why the hell hasn't someone released a sextoy-looking product where i can scan those codes into my pc?
absolute genius.
The Nokia N-Gage makes my gaming wang flacid.
Old Skool.
The Apple III.
Blew from day 1. Blows today.
Pulled before less than 75K units sold.
The Apple Pippin.
Apple computers powerpc platform. . .
had to switch to a real processor.
What Commodore did to the Amiga!!! I'm still mad about that.
"Any mp3 player other than the iPod. Because, you know, why even bother?"
Because the iPod sucks ass?
Anyhow, the Apple Newton. I've never used one, but I've read the stories, and man, did it suck.
Laserdiscs!
Segway!
Apple computers powerpc platform. . .
had to switch to a real processor.
Sinclair C5 - Sir Clive too a very successful company and ran it into the ground all because of his stupid dream of a cheap electric car. He even got the UK government to change laws just to make the thing street legal.
Apple Newton - Way ahead of its time, and even at release it was a pretty useless device.
3Com Audrey - Dreamed up in an era where we were made to think that the Internet should be everywhere.
Microsoft BOB - No comment :)
By a long shot it has to be COLD FUSION:
Cold fusion is the generation of anomalous excess heat at low temperatures. It began with experiments using an immersed palladium electrode activated in heavy water. In March, 1989, when the achievement of cold fusion was first reported in the press, electrochemically induced reactions were very difficult to reproduce.
Micro MV Video Format, Sony's "MP3" Walkman (that didn't play MP3's), Beta, and DAT
Tiger's game.com. First of all, it was huge, even for when it came out (1997). This thing needed 4 AA batteries to power it at a time when the Gameboy Pocket ran on 2 AAAs. The touchscreen was a cool feature, but it had very few games that could really use it due to its low resolution. The internet access feature required an optional modem and isp which were unaffordable and frankly useless; unfortunately that is what it was marketed around. This thing needed 4 AA batteries to power it at a time when the gameboy pocket ran on 2 AAAs. The Gameboy color was released the year after Game.Com came out.
Actually, the 3Com Audrey rocks as a $100 color touch screen browser for your kitchen countertop...
- Jon
ahh you beat me! segway
Don't agree with Mike on the Minidisc, he's obviously never been outside the US, where the Minidisc has always been quite a success. In the days before MP3 players became affordable Europeans were enjoying their players capable of holding 300 songs for under $200.
Phantom gaming console... Oh wait, we are talking about things that actually exist.
Does new coke count as a gadget. :)
xbox360/playstation3
The Nokia N-Gage makes my gaming wang flacid.
Apple Lisa!
3. Apple Pippin.
2. Hip Zip
1. Tablet PC
Simple!.... The Radio Watch.
Nintendo Powerglove.
the DeLorean was the best thing ever!!!
on 3Com's Audrey: Oprah gave them out, so someone has to have one somewhere.
MiniDisc is quite a success everywhere but here, so I'd say that Iomega's Clik! drives and DataPlay were far bigger flops.
I would second the Audrey and yes, I have two ;)
Apple pippin.
Super Audio CDs (sacd) and dvd-audio
dvd-ram (which is a nice concept, but still, can you really call it a dvd when it doesn't play on dvd players?)
The sharp Zaurus (sadly) and PDA's in general
paying with your cell-phone, like a cell-phone wallet.
I think that Windows ME was the worst gadget ever produced because of its horrible instability. Microsoft shouldve given all the owners of ME a fresh copy of 2kpro
IBM Peanut or ATI 5200 Analogue Joystick without centering mechanism. Brilliant!
Turbo Grafx Express (the handheld TG16) or the Apple Newton.
Metricom's Ricochet!
Has to be Iomega's Jaz Drive. Pure evil.
Iridium satellite phones.
I am amazed that nobody has mentioned Betamax yet. Also, I'm pretty sure the Iomega REV is a flop in the making.
#37 - How do you think the US won the cold war? Gorbachev himself said it was because of SDI(the idea of it at least). In a sense, SDI achieved its purpose by other means. Even though the program have not materize as planned ...yet, it brought countless of technological spinoffs that to this day help drive our economical engine.
Not only it was far from a flop, SDI is not consider "a" gadget. I hate it when someone inject their polical slant out of context. Stick to the subject at hand.
I wouldn't consider the Beta tape player to be a flop. People bought considerable amounts of the players and tapes(hell, my dad was a huge advocate of it and still has all of his old beta tapes.)
I think we need to truly define "flop"...
Flop (flŏp) n: an arithmetic operation performed on floating-point numbers.
In which case this is the biggest flop of all time (as of right now):
http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/PR_2005-03-23_NA-05-05.htm
Could anything compete with iridium satellite phone? I don't know how many of the satellites went up, but there were supposed to be 48 at $4b...
Now that's an expensive flop!
The CueCat is close to the top although its gadget qualities weren't what killed it. Crappy barcode readers have been done before. The problem was that the economics of giving away a million scanners (even crappy ones) for free and THEN figuring out that you don't have a source of income was too stupid to last even in the dot com era.
Close second was the Tandy Zoomer or whatever the Radio Shack Newton wannabe was called.
Sorry but have to come to the defence of the Apple Newton. The 2X00 was far from being a flop. Expensive, yes but not a flop. In fact, if Jobs had allowed the Newton to spin-off as a separate company (which is what it was about to do when he returned to Apple) the handheld market would most likely be quite different now (Palm and Microsoft would have been forced to make evolutionary products to match the Newton).
Sony's Clie T415 and the Sierra VOQ cellphone were flops.
Comanche helicopter
the nintendo ds
Video Now. It hardly even qualifies as a gadget.
The Phillips CD-I Gaming system that had a stereo remote as the gaming control... with non touch sensitive mouse like pointer... it came out in 1992 and i think it was $400 - $500 even then... and boy did it suck. I think it had an encyclopedia that came with it? Not what you want in a gaming system.
Sega channel...
sega anything for that matter (remember sega cd, sega 32x,dreamcast, saturn....me neither
I gotta agree with the above poster...
Only one word: MODO.
Great potential. I bought one. It rocked for about 3 days, then it stopped updating. Because there was no network. Because the whole company collapsed overnight. ARGH! I still have mine... ;)
dual-disc hands down.
Comanche
$6.9 billion and 21 years of effort into producing a new-generation chopper.
thanks for wasting out tax dollars!
LMDS and MMDS
I think Windows in general is the worst flop of all, since it has probably caused more errors than anything else.
the apple newton was a huge flop (i love apple dont get me wrong) it was way to ahead of its time now pda's are every place.