9 top tech flops of 2008
CNN has a list of the 9 top tech flops of 2008, with the T-Mobile G1 as the first flop.
There’s probably no denying that the Google phone has its issues, and it is far away from being the huge success the Apple iPhone has been, but with it’s open platform and development environment it was probably never meant to be a new iPhone.
The Google phone with its Android platform is like the iPhone a newer form of mobile phone, where the user interface and experience has changed from being … well … phone-based to something more. For too long has mobile phones just been mobile phones, while they clearly can benefit from doing more, considering how much we use them.
Sure, efforts have been made, with JME and other APIs, but it has taken companies not traditionally in the phone business to do something more with the phone, and do it better than what has previously been done. It’s hardly perfect yet, I know, but it’s a good start.
Perhaps the Google phone is just looked upon as a flop because it was perceived as being something it wasn’t intended to be. From what I read, it would have been obvious to anyone that it wasn’t a new iPhone.