10 tech turkeys of the year
LOS ANGELES — There were so many tech innovations in 2015, including self-driving cars, virtual reality and smaller, lighter and sharper cameras. But not everybody succeeded.
Thus, my take on the top 10 tech turkeys of the year.
No. 1: Apple Watch. Easily the most hyped new tech product of 2015, the Apple Watch was the poster child for the wearable tech category. It does have its fans who like wrist notifications and workout tools such as a heart rate monitor and step tracking.
My take: Perhaps one day, Apple will come up with a watch that’s light, can get through the day without a charge, has useful apps that can be easily accessed on the phone and is more than just an iPhone extension. This work-in-progress watch has a lot of improvement it needs to do for Watch 2.0 in 2016.
No. 2: Smartphone battery life. Considering the amount of money and time we spend on smartphones, you’d think that among all the new features manufacturers gave us in 2015, they’d come through with the one we all really want: more hours of usage. Our phones are still not lasting a full day. Let's drop all new products for 2016 and focus on improved battery life. Imagine how happy consumers would be.
No. 3: Chip credit cards: On the face of it, these new, safer, more secure credit cards are a consumer plus. But they’re hard to use and have created havoc at stores, making lines longer and slower than ever. The positive is they’re probably the best catalyst we’ve seen for paying via mobile phone. I see more folks trying out Apple Pay and Samsung Pay in 2016.
No. 4: Facebook Notify: Let’s face it, our phones have become overloaded with notifications: Facebook Messenger, Twitter direct message, texts and so many news organizations pushing alerts all the time. The folks at Facebook had an idea: What if we could bring even more notifications to folks with the Facebook Notify app? The notion is to get yet more news headlines, sports scores and the like from your favorite news organization and read them on your smartphone lock screen. I say, OMG, save me! More notifications? Help!
No. 5: Subscriptions: In the same vein, how sick are you of those endless monthly charges? Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, TiVo — the list goes on and on and on. You need to be a detective to keep track of them all.
No. 6: Verizon’s FIOS: The media giant received glowing headlines when it said you no longer had to pay for thousands of TV channels via its FIOS service. The consumer could instead pick and choose and get a small, lighter package of channels he or she actually wants to watch. Reality check: Not really. When I looked to make the switch from paying more than $200 per month, I could ditch dozens of channels (including Comedy Central, Sundance Channel, BBC America and Discovery), yet my savings was just $16 monthly. You could barely buy a few turkey legs for that.
No. 7: T-Mobile’s BingeOn: The good news: free video streaming that doesn’t count as part of your monthly bill. The bad news from the No. 3 wireless carrier: You'll step back in time for this bargain to before we had phone screens with 1080p and 4K resolution, and you'll watch videos with low 480p resolution.
T-Mobile gambles consumers will go lower def for free viewing
No. 8: Connected credit cards: An idea whose time never came, the “connected” credit card ties all your existing ones into one central card, so you no longer have to carry multiple cards. Just use a Stratos or Coin card to access your Visa or American Express. Nice idea on paper, but you have to pay upward of $99 to participate. I’ll pass.
No. 9: Epson ECO Print. Consumers hate being gouged on ink refill charges, right? Epson unveiled a new way: Pay more upfront for your printer, say $400 instead of $100, and you’ll get cheaper ink that will last you longer, or up to two years, Epson claims.
In the end, consumers will spend even more money. The two-year refill on the ECO tank is $49.99, bringing the total to $450. A standard Epson printer is available on Amazon for $89.99, and if you factor in two ink refills yearly at $63.88 apiece, for two years, the grand total comes to $345. Who does Epson think it’s kidding?
No. 10: Steve Jobs : Hollywood makes a film about the late Apple co-founder, and it’s a very fictional, dark take on a flawed but brilliant man who is mostly unrecognizable to those of us who knew him. Most of the action in the movie never happened. The film was a big bomb at the box office, deservedly so, a real turkey.
That's my list. What were your tech turkeys of the year? Let's talk about it on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham.