Top 5 Tech Fails of 2013!

2013. It’s seen some great, and I mean, great technology. But with some home runs, you also get some strikeouts. With the year winding down, we’re counting down the Top 5 Tech Fails of 2013!

Number 5: Xbox One’s Internet-All-The-Time Policy

This was a trending topic for a long time when it was broadcasted from Microsoft to the public in May. The gaming community was infuriated! The slew of restrictions on the Xbox One put a digital rights management system on discs and stopped users from letting their friends borrowing their games and generated a ton of negativity into the console’s hype.

Then, hours later, Sony announced their flagship console required no Internet connection and boasted that gamers could use, lend, and sell discs as much as their so hearts desired. It was back to the drawing board for Microsoft and the backlash was strong enough to make Microsoft reverse all their policies. The controversy didn’t seem to hurt sales, but people were definitely talking about it earlier this year!

Number 4: Facebook Home

Smartphones and social media go hand in hand, right? Right! So mashing them up together should sell like hotcakes, right? Nope.

Facebook Home is a collection of apps and software that aimed to take over your Android phone with Facebook everywhere. For an Android fanboy, this was just the worst kind of bloatware (next to carrier bloatware, but don’t get me started on that). Home is the prime example of how Facebook overestimates how much people check their News Feeds and update their statuses. People use, and like you, Facebook! Just not that much.

And for the HTC First, the official “Facebook Phone”? It was launched as an AT&T exclusive, so that definitely limited who could buy it. It then received a price cut. It shorty after launched and got discontinued faster than you could count to five. It failed pretty badly, and added to furthered HTC’s own woes.

Number 3: An Epic Snooping Scandal: Courtesy of the NSA

Oh boy, here we go. Back in June, leaks pointed that the National Security Agency and its PRISM program tapped technology and telecom companies alike to obtain phone records, e-documents, and loads else of personal data. These leaks kicked off a colossal debate over the balance between the government’s security needs and the liberties of civil liberties. This continues to be a withstanding issue between the NSA and the rest of the U.S. government.

As the reports continued to come in, a face was linked with incident in Edward Snowden, the former contractor who was exposed as the source of the leaks. Snowden ended up fleeing to Russia, starting up worries that he could feed further secrets to the U.S’s #1 “frenemy.” This ended up being an empty threat that never really grew and Snowden was hammered a one-year asylum.

More leaks said that the NSA also spied on leaders and citizens of tons of other countries, namely the other four members in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. This came with outrage from the international citizens as well as the public.

Number 2: Smartwatches

Ah, the smartwatch. The wearable that was supposed to innovate the way we interacted the world around us this year. Well, that certainly didn’t happen.

We most definitely saw great effort from companies like Samsung and Pebble, but they’re just too many issues that surfaced this year that severely hindered the smartwatch experience. The list of issues most notably included short battery life combined with limited functionality.

The smartwatches that we saw this year just did too little. For example, the Galaxy Gear relies on your Samsung smartwatch to even function and is basically an extension of your phone on your body. Once smartwatches are more independent, bring more innovative features, last days on a charge, and don’t look stupid – you’ll have me listening.

Number 1: Blackberry

You had to see this one coming. I would say Blackberry would be one here next year for sure, but I don’t even know if they’ll be around next year.

CEO Thorsten Heins thought he change the fate of the company this year with the launch of the all-touchscreen Blackberry Z10 paired with Blackberry 10. The Z10 and BB10 failed to compete in a market dominated by Android and the iPhone.

The only thing this year that could top the write down of Microsoft’s Surface was the $934M charge Blackberry took to write off its inventory of anything-but-sold Z10s. Now the company has fled the consumer market and is now focusing on business and pros and “power users” (whoever that is!)

John Chen, Interim CEO, has cleared the air, with Heins stepping down paired with Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka, Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear, and Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben. Chen wants the company (for some odd reason) to focus on software development.

In all honesty, the company will most likely be broken up and sold limb-by-limb. Who’s going to buy, you ask? No idea.

2013 was a great year for tech, but here are just some of the things this year that proved to be duds. Anyway, thanks for reading on Tech of Tomorrow!