8 discontinued tech products we miss It happens all the time — for one reason or another, a company discontinues a product. It diverts its resources to other products in hope of creating something bigger and better. Though this transition is as old as the machine industry itself, there are and have been products that we users continue to miss, whether its for purely nostalgic reasons or practical purposes. Here are eight such products that we continue to miss long after their demise. 1)Apple Newton Introduced: 1993 Discontinued: 1998 This was Apples first take on a handheld organizational device. It used a stylus and handwriting recognition software to capture notes, orchestrate your calendar, and look up contact information. There are a number of theories surrounding why it was discontinued. It had several flaws — the writing recognition dictionary contained only 10,000 words, for instance. The most reasonable seems to be that Apple was in financial distress and had to make cuts where it could. 2)PalmPilots Introduced: 1997 Discontinued: 2010 Another relic of the late 1990s, Palms devices were the de facto handheld organizer for years — and hugely popular with business-types back in the day. They ran specialized apps like current smartphones and some even had their own wireless data connections. The devices bit the dust when HP acquired the company for $1.2 billion in 2010. 3)Polaroid film Introduced: 1948 Discontinued: 2008 One of the celebrities of discontinued products, Polaroids instant film hung in there for a long time before the company pulled the plug. It saw a number of formats over the years, before it ultimately went the way of the dodo. The culprit behind its demise? Digital cameras. 4)Google Reader Introduced: 2005 Discontinued: 2013 Google pulled the plug on Reader news aggregator on July 1 last year. Google Reader was a powerful RSS feed management tool. Its beloved by many, but not enough for Google to keep busy supporting it. The official explanation: While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. 5)Google Desktop Introduced: 2004 Discontinued: 2011 This was a handy piece of PC software that provided users with a central location to simultaneously search email, files on a computer, music, photos, and web page history. It even supported handy widgets to offer up useful info at a glance. Desktop was one of several products discontinued all at once as Google refocused its resources. 6)Adobe PageMaker Introduced: 1986 Discontinued: 2004 PageMaker was a groundbreaking desktop publishing programme that made it a snap to produce compelling documents, magazines, or whatever other text and image-based media you wanted. Although development has ceased, Adobe still sells and supports it. Adobe chose to focus on InDesign instead. 7)Amazon Kindle Keyboard Introduced: 2010 Discontinued: 2013 What is now known as the Kindle Keyboard was officially the third generation of Amazons famous e-reader. It had the newer E Ink Pearl display, for sharper text and faster refresh rates. And an ad-supported version, named Kindle With Special Offers, was introduced in 2011. It remained while Amazon pushed out the Kindle Touch, Kindle Paperwhite and, of course, the Kindle Fire. But it was quietly discontinued last year. 8)Cisco Flip Introduced: 2006 Discontinued: 2011 A beloved, pocket-sized, super-simple camera that shot up to an hour of video and stored it digitally — whats not to love? Cisco acquired Pure Digital Technologies, the company behind the device and ended up ceasing production. Cisco had decided to use its consumer companies resources to further support four of its five key company priorities. Also, phone-based video cameras were becoming sophisticated enough so that people did not need to carry a separate video camera.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 07:04:39 +0000