Challenger Tech Brands that Failed.

Rob ⚡️ · 2022-01-24T19:42:26+00:00

Welcome to a thread in which to discuss and mourn the tech brands that tried to break the mould … but ultimately failed. I want to hear the stories of new brands that you took a chance on, the ones that did things differently, and the stories behind why they failed. To kick things off, I tip my hat to *Wileyfox*, a British smartphone company founded in 2015 that caught my attention with its quirky branding, and a mission to offer quality smartphones at lower prices. Their tagline? - ***For fox sake, it’s time to change.*** Their inaugural devices, the *Storm,* and the *Swift*, priced at £199 and £129 respectively, were great value. They shipped with the highly customizable Cyanogen OS, had great styling, Snapdragon chips, and 4G! At the time, as a tech-loving student, the prospect of a well-specced device *without* the flagship pricing was extremely compelling. Reviews were largely positive, with many praising the solid and premium feel of the devices, owing to their use of quality materials. In 2016, *Wileyfox* released an *even cheaper* range of devices, the *Spark, Spark +,* and *Spark X* with the lowest spec model retailing for a minuscule £90. These new devices were less well-received compared to their siblings. Even with their impressively low price points, their mediocre specs failed to rival the offerings of better-established budget smartphone brands like *Motorola* or *Honor*. After a few years of trading, Wileyfox fell into administration in 2018, mostly as a result of the low-margin model they had in place to offer devices so cheaply. The company was later bought by STK who saved them from bankruptcy, but ultimately did nothing with the brand (other than releasing this [weird Windows Phone](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wileyfox-Windows-BUSINESS-SIM-Free-Smartphone-Black/dp/B077DDT9H8)). It's sad to see any company fail, especially one that attempted to pass on savings to the consumer - but in this case, the brand fell victim to its own mission. [upl-image-preview url=https://s3-nothing-prod.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/2022-01-25/1643110243-573702-image.png ] Take to the comments below to share your bereavement for a small player who was lost too soon!

Kastello

Rob ⚡️

I’m sad about Essential. I mean it’s good that Nothing bought the license still a pure android smartphone would have been awesome.

Louis ☕️

Rob ⚡️ Nice topic, there’s certainly plenty that we could throw into this mix.

My addition to the tried and failed brands is Palm’s attempt at really breaking into the smartphone world - Palm Pre (plus the sequel, Palm Pre 2) of which I owned both devices. The biggest issue with the phone was probably they launched with buggy software, wearOS and tried to take on the iPhone which was a mean feat for anyone. So why were they so different?

Well, the Palm Pre was all about half touchscreen and half physical keyboard, which was revealed with a cool slide up and down function. It featured many things that our phones do today, including multitasking, cards (as in many window tabs) and had a really cool magnetic charger called Touchstone. Having read a few more recent reviews and looking back at the device and it’s software, the other downfall to the phones was the fact that it was probably ahead of its time and didn’t have the right amount of R&D/support behind it to really excel.

The Palm Pre I had got sent back to the support team 5 times during my first 12 months due to bugs or just simply not working (in 2009 it received 6 major software updates to try and eradicate such bugs), which resulted in me receiving a free upgrade to the Palm Pre 2. Not much had changed apart from the fact it was faster, it’s camera was slightly better and the screen was flat vs curved. By this point, the majority of my friends were all enjoying the iPhone or Samsung life and I felt a bit left behind as I couldn’t install basic apps to join in with them.

In 2010, HP bought Palm and that pretty much was the end of it. HP Pre 3 was launched in 2011 in the UK and the next day, HP decided they were discontinuing all webOS devices - literally what was the point in launching, it didn’t even hit the US?

If you want to read a bit more about Palm Pre, what was going to make it so special and it’s incredibly quick downfall, here’s a great article I came across. Meanwhile, here’s a photo of the amazing device that could’ve been!

Rob ⚡️

Louis ☕️ I have to say, most of my knowledge of Palm comes from the Pre being compared to the first iPhone 😆 - almost like it was the phone that made the iPhone look so damn good! Thank you for sharing your experiences and a brief history! I don’t suppose you still have one tucked away in a drawer somewhere?

Louis ☕️

Rob ⚡️ I WISH I still had one but no, it was flung a long time ago and quickly forgotten 😀

Helasending

I don’t have an actually company that failed but I do remember when the Note 7 Was released to the public. Then phones just exploding. Man that was crazy.

I remember when my Dad got the Note 7. He had to send it back and he got an S7 edge instead. Those were the days.

Pyrodox

One of my favorite project that failed miserably even before launching was Google’s Project Ara.

The Idea was simple and beautiful. You have phone frame and just add or upgrade the components as needed. Someone who likes to have better camera can simply add the better camera module and phone would work with the module seamlessly.

But the idea was born in 2012, and the market was demanding for better phones than the modular phones. I am guessing the introduction of the Project Ara was way too early for cellphone industry.

Rob ⚡️

Pyrodox Coh, I just remember seeing articles about this and really believing that the project would be successful … I know Fairphone has taken a similar approach, but nowhere near as sexy as these concepts were 🙁

Such a shame!

mkhufp

Anyone remember this? https://web.archive.org/web/20170821151058/http://atap.google.com/ara
Modular phone concept. Neat

Louis ☕️

mkhufp I think this is what @Pyrodox was alluding to above 👆 Great concept and thought it was such a unique gamble at the time. Perhaps at one point we might see this sort of approach return, I guess it all depends on what the market and consumers are demanding plus the additional costs to such a modular design.

Pyrodox

The legendary Nokia N-Gage QD

Never owned this one. But I have used my uncle’s. The games in this were legendary too. Asphalt, Call of Duty, Fifa, MotoGP.

Sib64

I think that someones of you remeber the Polaroid brand.

History.

Years of Operation: 1937 - 2008
Fate: The Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001 and the “new” Polaroid that came from the ashes was itself declared bankrupt in 2008.
Best known for: Instant Cameras

Polaroid was an American company originally founded in 1937 and best known for its instant film and cameras. At its peak, the company employed 21,000 people and made $3 billion in revenue.

During World War II, the company designed several clever products for the allied forces including an infrared night viewing device but it was the companies instant film cameras originally released in the 1950s and 1960s that truly made its name.

In later years, the rise of new technologies would change the world of photography. New developments such as one-hour film processing, camcorders and, perhaps most significantly, digital cameras would lead to a decline in the fascination with instant cameras. As a result, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. A new company would rise from the ashes but it too declared bankruptcy in 2008.

adbo

Sib64 Really interesting, I genuinely didn’t know that the Polaroid brand today is not the same as the original brand. Polaroid is still pretty big here in the UK, they currently sell instant film and instant cameras. Looks like they were founded in 2008 as a brand acquisition of the original company. Wikipedia page

Louis ☕️

adbo Sib64 childhood memories of getting a disposable Polaroid, before any holiday. Then taking it back to the shops on return and waiting for all the snaps to develop. Those were the days 😅

RedBeardedJason

Definitely have to through Pebble into the mix. They did a great job for so long but even they couldn’t outlast the Tech Titans.

Rob ⚡️

RedBeardedJason I watched soo many great reviews of these e-ink beauties - perhaps they were just a little ahead of thier time. I like that the displays didn’t beg for your attention, almost low-fi, functional without being a full ‘smartphone’ on the wrist. Would love to see how this idea could be reimagined today.

adbo

Louis ☕️ Ahh for me it was always the bright yellow Kodak disposable cameras 😄 but yes, fond memories!

Sib64

adbo
Like those. And I think you only knew the new versions. Those are the first disposable Kodak and the other one, the Fuji, is the first disposable sold in 1986.

Louis ☕️ Yes, now many people don’t even develop their photos and keep them on USB sticks or on their smartphones.

adbo

Sib64 Those are the ones! They bring back so many memories. I can’t believe the viewfinder is just a hole in the camera body 🤣

Speaking of developing, my girlfriend and I always make a printed photobook each year. It’s a nice way of showing our photos to guests (if they’re interested of course!) and to look back on memories, without having hundreds of printed unorganised photos

mkhufp

this is a good thread idea. health category =theranos?
https://deadstartuptoys.com/ this is quite fun

KirubhasWasHere

A hot one but here’s a very very recent challenger tech ‘brand’ that ‘failed’.

Google Nexus/Pixel:

A very very critically acclaimed and amazing Nexus series which was a perfect combination of a bunch of players sticking to their core competence(LG/HTC in manufacturing and Google in software) to bring about a product that delivered joy and value to ALL stakeholders🥺🥺🥺

Then Google decided to take manufacturing into its own hands and decided to release phones with hardware issues every generation. The Pixel line is still alive but is a shadow of what the Nexus line was.

We went from THIS

To this:

What a regression sigh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus

Android One

When Google said it’ll partner with various OEMs to ship stock android on their phones, as someone residing in an Asian country with lower percapita income than the west, I was THRILLED to say the least at the prospect of Chinese OEMs(Xiaomi/BBK) partnering up.

This would mean buttery smooth, bloat-free software combined with bang-for-buck powerful hardware. Xiaomi the low-margin high volume business model beast did partner up and launch the Xiaomi A series. This would be amazing since users wouldn’t have to deal with a very bloaty and ad-filled Xiaomi software.

This would be the democratisation of good software experience. The Nexus for the Next billion people.

The Xiaomi Mi A1 sold like hotcakes, almost cannibalizing their entire lineup around that price range.

A year+ down the line, Xiaomi started under-speccing the A lineup and also the updates they were pushing to the A1 were buggy and some version updates straight up bricked phones. The update timeline was way off from promised etc etc. They eventually discontinued the lineup after Mi A3.

Nokia still does release Android One phones but without the Chinese OEMs taking this up, this never really took off.

Thank you for this thread to everyone. Loved this bit of “what could’ve been” feeling.

Rob ⚡️

KirubhasWasHere Great contribution to this thread! I find the design evolution of Pixel devices pretty baffling and disappointing too 😬

Sayan_Dutta

KirubhasWasHere The pixel lineup still has some time to make a come back, and I reckon they are slowly getting there. And about Android One, the less you talk about it, the better it is. Absolutely baffling that they killed it, it had some huge potential.

cristian

KirubhasWasHere Yes i got a Nokia 3.4 (Android1 + snap 4 series) for just 100€. I think there aren’t nothing better at this price. Reguarding Nexus/Pixel the big failure was the 6 becouse of was huge (6 inch in 16:9 format could be a tablet), and XLs don’t seems really cool, but however the line work. I think pixel 5 is maybe the most beautiful phone until now… Pixel 6 also cool

Louis ☕️

KirubhasWasHere The Nexus were some of the greatest HTC phones, such a shame they failed/got surpassed by Pixel due to the direction they wanted to go. Thanks for contributing this to the line up here 😃