Lately I have been thinking a lot about the technology that has entered and exited our lives over the past 10 years.  Over the ten-year lifespan of this blog and the mailing list that preceeded it much has changed in the technologies that permeate our daily lives — when we began this journey in 1999, desktops outsold notebooks by 4:1, Apple was a novelty computer maker for uber-geeks, and no one you knew had ever ‘googled’ themselves in public.  I thought I’d run down the most disappointing aspects of our jaunty shuffle into modernity.

What makes a technology disappointing?  Many products fail in obscurity because they try to solve something irrelevant.  What you need to do to make this list, friends, is aim high and fail wildly.   While most of the FAILs described herein are products, I did also find a couple of product categories which have really disappointed.. and one entire industry.  After all, disappointment is invariably the result of a combination of promise (our hopes & goals for the product or service) and the provider’s failure to achieve that promise.  Sometimes the predisposition for failure afflicts not just one company or product team, but an entire industry.  So here we go:

Motorola ROKR

In 2005, the fact that Apple was working on a mobile device to follow-up the iPod was a very poorly-kept secret, but the specifics were the source of much speculation.  And oh, how the fan boys wept when they thought that the sum-total of this effort was the ROKR, an epic piece of crap on which Apple collaborated with Motorola to produce a re-labelled Moto E398 with an iTunes client.  Although the ROKR had 512MB of memory on-board, the device was software-limited to 100 songs — and downloading them was a painful process as the device lacked USB 2.0.  Predictably the product was a #FAIL and Jobs and co. left Zander in the dust with the iPhone, but for those who actually believed that this was Apple’s solitary foray into mobile, there were a few sleepless months.

Satellite Radio

FM radio sucks.  There’s probably a JACK-FM station in your city, where the DeeJays “play what they want”.  Only, they don’t really.. they play exclusively Top 10 hits from the past 20 years regardless of musical genre, the result of which can easily result in a computer-controlled segue from Katrina and the Waves to a Beyonce track.  That the radio business considers this format to be innovative explains why we need alternatives, and satellite radio was supposed to be that alternative.  Sirius and XM radio both got off the ground in 2001, so to speak.  In 2003 I predicted a merger between the two, which was announced February 2007.  And while Satellite radio does permit greater diversity, and thus narrower focus, in channels there are many problems.  Foremost of these is the audio compression technology, called Lucent PAC, which according to studies has lower perceptual quality than even MP3 at the same bitrate; and the rumoured limitation of stream bandwidth to 64Kbps per channel… far worse than the MP3s on your hard drive and light years from the “CD Quality” that Sirius et al used to advertise.  This makes Satellite radio a no-go for audiophiles, but OK for talk radio and sports.  We continue to wait for decent music without wires.

Nokia N-Gage

It’s likely that the N-Gage failed simply because it failed to.. uh.. engage the game development community with much enthusiasm.  Launched in 2004, the device’s total failure was predicted by a string of awful reviews stemming from substantial usability problems, such as the fact that users had to essentially disassemble the device to swap games, or the fact that one couldn’t receive calls while playing a game, or that the device was weighty and uncomfortable and impractical for use as a phone, or the fact that the screen could not display horizontally, or its $299 price tag (substantially higher than the Game Boy Advance).  Developers probably saw the writing on the wall when evaluating early test units of the N-Gage.

The PDA

Remember the iPaq?  Or the early Palm devices?  Today, the notion of a mobile address book device that isn’t coupled to a telephone seems positively stupid.  In November 2000, I asked the market to build me a mobile handheld device that married my email to my phone and tied it together via my address book — all of which synced to my PC.  In my mind at the time, PDAs were gap fillers until we could field broadband wireless IP networks that provided persistent connectivity.  The smartphone — devices like the iPhone and Droid — killed the PDA and for most of us I suspect that is good riddance.  Nobody wants to walk around looking like Batman, their belt burdened by half-a-dozen devices beeping and squawking.  How many people bought these things or received them as gifts, only to abandon them within months?  Still, credit where it’s due — the PDA begat the SmartPhone, and we’re all better for it.

Modo.NET

I’m betting you never heard of Modo.NET because it was launched exclusively in San Francisco, LA and New York in the summer of  2000, but Scout Electromedia, the company that created it, collapsed within 3 months (in fact the device was available in SF for only 1 day before the business folded dramatically).  Like Dodgeball, which launched shortly after Modo’s collapse, Modo was all about the urban hipster lifestyle.  Built around yet another PDA-like device with a hugely innovative design, the Modo leveraged the paging network to update its users with happenings in and around the city… it was like the pager you carried with you when going out on the town on Friday nights.  Two major design compromises crippled the Modo, however… it had no keyboard; and was receive-only.  Also… like Dodgeball, the Modo was an idea ahead of its time: all of Scout’s business and consumer goals are now attainable on smartphones:  no stand-alone device or clunky SMSing necessary.  Today many of these goals are embodied in Foursquare and other services.

Motorola DVR Series

Hello again, Motorola!  Let me make this crystal clear for you, Mr. Zander:  Dude, I just want to be able to watch TV and record things for playback later with a minimum of interference.  In response, Motorola created an underpowered set-top device that frequently overheats, trashes its own hard drive, and has a user interface that is akin to debating Keynesian Economics with a three-year-old.  Perhaps it’s because you have an effective duopoly, along with your buddies from Scientific Atlanta, on the cable set-top-box market even despite the FCC’s insistence on the CableCard standard.  Perhaps you simply lack the kind of employees that have any affinity for user experience design.  What is evident is that you and your cable partners are under no specific motivation to improve this product, as it has now been in circulation for nearly 5 years with zero material improvement.  In fact, your products in this category, including the DCT-6412 with which I am famously saddled (this article is the number one most visited on ianbell.com) are so crappy that the FCC believes they are discouraging people from adopting Cable Television itself.  Be ashamed.  You suck.

The AppleTV

Like Afghanistan, the set top box seems to be a graveyard of empires — so much so that even Silicon Valley’s King Midas, Steve Jobs, has been laid humble before it.  The AppleTV is, like many other set top boxes, underpowered for the task at hand.  More like an iPod than a Mac Mini, the AppleTV fails to meet user expectations as an all-rounder, lacks CODECs for popular formats and wrappers like .MKV and .AVI, and only works effectively when you pay for and download all of your content from the iTunes walled garden.  Set top boxes that do satisfy tend to allow users to get their content from wherever and sync/stream it from a media server elsewhere in the house — this is true of the iPod lineup, and that is a lesson Apple should have carried forward into this product.  Moreover, the AppleTV doesn’t even have an OFF button.

Green Cars

In 2006, when I bought my Jetta GLI, I promised myself that it would be my last gas-guzzler.  I just bought another vanilla car last month, though, after seeking and failing to find a suitable practical alternative in the diesel, hybrid, pure electric, or hydrogen vehicle.  It’s important to understand that gasoline, hydrogen, and batteries are simply storage media for energy.  Where energy is derived from — whether it’s nuclear, solar, wind, coal, crude oil, or whatever else you can come up with — determines the sustainability, not what it burns or farts out the tailpipe.  Moreover for me, like most consumers, a next-generation car needs to fulfill my usual manly requirement for sportiness or (for others) accessibility or safety, with some added convenience — such as not needing to buy gas at stations or being able to drive long distances without a refuel.  The zero tailpipe emissions is a nice benefit, but not a buying feature for most.  As I pointed out last year, mainstream auto manufacturers have consistently failed to figure this out.  And if you live in a region where all of the energy on the grid is derived from coal or natural gas then you are not doing the environment any favours by purchasing a plug-in.

Pet Robots

Since Robbie the Robot did the rounds on TV sitcoms in the 1950s, Americans have fantasized about having a jetsons-style friend rendered in metal and silicon adorning their living room.  With the launch of Sony’s AIBO in late 1999, things were looking up for us.  At a price tag of $2500 though, there was still some room for improvement, and robots began to emerge all up and down the cost and capability matrix.  The most successful by far was iRobot’s Roomba, which fulfills the robot servant role quite nicely but falls flat on the personality index.  In the latter category resides the Pleo, and I will confess I have always wanted one.  Unlike the Aibo, though, the Pleo isn’t really autonomous.  It gets an hour at the most out of its batteries, and cannot return by itself to its charging station.  The Pleo is a great demonstration of how pre-programmed behaviour can trigger emotions — not in the robot itself, but in its owner — but sadly disappoints and is not viable as a “pet” robot.  Maybe next decade, Robbie.

Music Revolution

At the end of the last decade, with the massive growth of Napster, the writing was on the wall.  People clearly voted with their feet in showing how they wanted to use music.  While this had been the case for decades, with mix tapes and pirate radio, the internet as in other industries was a key enabler.  Yet rather than embrace and extend this revolution, as tech industry companies tend to do, the music industry went on the warpath via the RIAA.  Lawyers mobilized, suing 12-year-old kids, single moms, and other obvious villains.  The only accomplishment of the RIAA has been to effectively kill internet radio, which would serve to promote their artists, while music sharing has continued unabated.  Yet, at the end of the decade came one smattering of good news, and further proof of industry executives’ failure to appreciate irony:  a lawsuit revealed that the Canadian music industry has been stealing from artists for 25+ years, and faces a $6Bn liability.  Small justice, I suppose.  So while the technologies (that’s what this post is about after all) that came from the publishers has been an abject failure, the technologies, such as BitTorrent, WebJay, Pandora, et al created by users and lovers of music has flowered.  Imagine what would happen if the innovators actually had the support of that industry?

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you through the teens.

Overview

With the Pocket PC Phone Edition from T-Mobile you can achieve the next level of productivity. A combined phone and organizer, it includes pocket versions of Microsoft Word and Excel, an Internet Browser, the Windows Media Player and Instant Messaging. It all runs on the only nationwide GPRS network, by T-Mobile, where you get more. Basic info:

Talk time: 5 hrs (PDA Off) Standby time: 180 hrs Size: 5.1 L x 2.8 W x 0.7 H inches Weight: 6.8 oz

Included accessories:

Includes Charger and Battery and Hands-Free Headset and Belt Clip and Case and Sync Software Optional accessories:

Batteries

Cases and Belt Clips

Chargers and Conditioners

Data Interfaces

Hands Free / Car Kits

Vehicle Power Adapters Included services:

Built-in Paging

Caller ID

Conference Calling

Call Waiting and Call Hold

Customer Care

Access to Directory Assistance

Emergency Calls

Detailed Billing

Voicemail with Message Alert

Call Forwarding

International Dialing Supported optional services:

AOL Instant Messenger™ Service (AIM®)

T-Mobile Internet

———–

Thursday January 24, 3:26 pm Eastern Time

Press Release SOURCE: Nextel Communications

Nextel, RIM and Motorola Agree To Produce Voice-enabled Handheld

RESTON, Va., WATERLOO, ON & SCHAUMBURG, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Jan. 24, 2002–

New Wireless Handheld Will Combine the Power of Blackberry With

Nextel’s Voice and Packet Data Network

Nextel Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:NXTL – news), Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM – news; TSE:RIM – news), and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT – news) today announced an agreement to develop a new Nextel/BlackBerry(TM)handheld with both voice and data capabilities.

This Personal Data Assistant (PDA) style form factor handheld will operate on Nextel’s national network using Motorola’s iDEN®integrated digital wireless network technology.

To facilitate this effort, Motorola and RIM have signed a licensing agreement allowing specific iDEN and RIM technologies to be incorporated into certain devices from each company.

RIM’s award-winning BlackBerry wireless email solution will be integrated with Nextel’s digital cellular, Nextel Direct Connect® digital two-way radio service, text and numeric paging, and Nextel Wireless Web online services, which were recently rated number one by Cahner’s In-Stat/MDR in customer satisfaction. The device will also support Java(TM) 2 Micro Edition (J2ME(TM)) applications.

“The combined Nextel/BlackBerry device will provide an additional platform on which businesses can create meaningful and cost effective applications for their mobile employees,” said Tim Donahue, Nextel’s president and chief executive officer. “The wireless email capabilities of this exclusive device will complement our Direct Connect and packet data services, and serve as a powerful new business tool for our customers.”

“RIM and Nextel have both developed unique wireless solutions for corporate customers,” said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO at Research In Motion. “This new integrated offering, together with our mutual commitment to Java-based wireless applications, will provide an innovative and attractive proposition for our business customers and development community.”

“Motorola’s iDEN technology gives Nextel the power to offer wireless voice, data and application services in a single device,” said Bill Werner, corporate vice president of Motorola and general manager of the iDEN Subscriber Group. “Our agreement with RIM will allow Nextel to leverage the advanced capabilities of their nationwide iDEN network to offer customers the choice of a messaging centric device in addition to an existing array of voice centric Java-enabled handsets.”

More than 13,000 organizations across North America already use BlackBerry to provide wireless email capabilities through an “always-on” connection, and RIM recently began marketing BlackBerry to customers in Europe. The Nextel/ BlackBerry offering will include advanced Java(TM)-based wireless handhelds, desktop tools, enterprise server software, and end-to-end security.

It will also operate fully on the Nextel National Network, the largest guaranteed all-digital wireless network in the country covering thousands of communities across the United States.

RIM and Nextel have signed a multi-year supply agreement for BlackBerry Wireless Handhelds with associated software and service. The new Nextel BlackBerry product is scheduled for release sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Further details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Nextel leads the industry in providing business customers with wireless data solutions that increase the productivity of the mobile workforce.

Customers within key vertical industry segments such as financial and information services, manufacturing and distribution, and many others will find the unique combination of native J2ME support, data security, messaging, and application management services a powerful platform for mobilizing corporate data and applications residing behind company firewalls.

About Research In Motion

Research In Motion Limited is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of innovative wireless solutions for the mobile communications market. Through development and integration of hardware, software and services, RIM provides solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information including email, messaging, Internet and intranet-based applications.

RIM technology also enables a broad array of third party developers and manufacturers around the world to enhance their products and services with wireless connectivity. RIM’s portfolio of award-winning products includes the RIM Wireless Handheld(TM) product line, the BlackBerry(TM) wireless email solution, embedded radio-modems and software development tools.

Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario RIM operates offices in Canada, the United States and England. RIM is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq:RIMM – news) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE:RIM – news). For more information, visit www.rim.net. Investors may contact investor_relations [at] rim [dot] net. Customers may contact info [at] rim [dot] net.

About Nextel

Nextel Communications, Inc., based in Reston, Va., is a leading provider of fully integrated wireless communications services and has built the largest guaranteed all-digital wireless network in the country covering thousands of communities across the United States. Nextel and Nextel Partners Inc., currently serve 195 of the top 200 U.S. markets.

Through recent market launches, Nextel and Nextel Partners service is available today in areas of the U.S. where approximately 230 million people live or work. In addition, through NII Holdings, Inc., wireless services are provided outside of Nextel’s domestic markets, primarily in selected Latin American markets. For more information visit www.nextel.com.

About Motorola

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT – news) is a global leader in providing integrated communications solutions and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 2001 were $30 billion. Today, more than 10 million iDEN handsets are in service in North America.

iDEN handsets combine the capabilities of a digital wireless phone with “always on” Internet access, text pager, and two-way radio to enable users to instantly communicate with one or hundreds of individuals at the push of a button. For further information, visit www.motorola.com/iden.

“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of the matters and subject areas discussed in this press release that are not historical or current facts deal with potential future circumstances and developments. The discussion of such matters and subject areas is qualified by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations generally, and also may materially differ from actual future experience involving any one or more of such matters and subject areas. We have attempted to identify, in context, certain of the factors that we currently believe may cause actual future experience and results to differ from current expectations regarding the relevant matter or subject area. Such risks and uncertainties include the successful performance of new technologies and devices, timely development and delivery of these new technologies and devices, economic conditions in currently existing and targeted markets, competitive conditions, market acceptance of these services and devices, technological changes, access to sufficient capital to meet operating and financing needs and those that are described from time to time in reports filed with the SEC by Research In Motion Limited, Nextel and Motorola, including each of their annual reports on Form 10-K and their subsequent quarterly filings on Form 10-Q. This press release speaks only as of its date, and Nextel, Research In Motion Limited and Motorola each expressly disclaims any duty to update the information herein.

Nextel, the Nextel logo, and Nextel Direct Connect are trademarks and/or service marks of Nextel Communications, Inc. Research In Motion, RIM and BlackBerry are trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. Research In Motion and RIM are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be pending or registered in other countries.

MOTOROLA, the Stylized M Logo and iDEN are registered in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Java and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.

I have had 3 or 4 different generations of the PALM PDA, starting with the very first one; waaay back I have been the owner of an Apple Newton and a beta tester of the MagicCap from General Magic. I have also owned an SMS-capable phone for the last 3 years (at least) and a WAP phone for 8 months.

Most recently I have destroyed or lost two consecutive RIM Blackberry 950s. To anyone who knows me well, this means that I use those most frequently (you always, after all, hurt the ones you love). So clearly the Killer App for me is wireless email. I’d also love to do instant messaging, just so I can keep up with the Joneses. But the RIM 950 and 957 have, for me, two distinct problems:

– No MacOS connectivity software (I have rejoined the desperate, seething hordes of Macaholics) – A shitty, shitty (did I say shitty?) address book that won’t sync to anything

So, periodically, as I am wont to do, I set out this evening to see if the PDA world had caught up to my needs.

The spec for me is simple:

– Sync to an address book on my Powerbook so that Eudora and my PDA share the same data. – Give me wireless email on the go. – Have a keyboard.

http://www.palm.com My eye was caught by the Palm Vx with a specifically styled and shaped Minstrel modem, albeit briefly. I had thought for a moment that you could actually use AOL Instant Messenger and Buddy List from it, and you can — but only with a landline modem connection. What gives? Also, while the form factor is super-cool (easily the best) the external keyboard you have to get so that you can type is big and ugly. Oh… and the price is a whopping $600. No way San Jose.

http://www.handspring.com Next, I flopped back to the Handspring. They’ve got some great deals ranging from $200-$400 for the Visor, and there’s a $99 deal on the Minstrel right now. Kick-ass! Well, the more I looked into it, the more I realized one key thing that will be the Visor’s undoing: The Visor is a shell — a house for mobile applications. This is great, but what if you want to do more than one at a time? For example, while I’m using my GPS to find a Mercedes Dealership in Beverly Hills, why should I have to remove my wireless email device? What if someone’s trying to reach me? UGH. Sorry, there, Sunnyvale.

http://www.blackberry.com So off we go back to the RIM 957. The new form factor rocks and rolls… this time they’ve got it right (though I wish it ran Palm OS AND had the keyboard), with a bigger screen that does graphics.

They’re all the rage here in Hollywood, by the way, because they’re big and they allow you to be cool in restaurants in a subtle-but-still-obnoxious way. You can pretend you’re a VC and your date is pitching you her latest business plan, and like most VC pitches you both go home, empty-handed and feeling like the other is a dolt because you spent the evening banging out emails to HomeGrocer.com customer service.

http://www.motorola.com/GSS/CSG/direct_pagers/T900/ Next, I dropped in on the Motorola T900 2-Way Email Pager. Everybody I know in the wacky consumer wireless products space is fawning over this thing these days. My friend Mike calls this the “RIM Killer”, but I think he’s wrong. Motorola is clearly thinking with their Paging hats on this device — it’s a stand-alone device, with no PC Sync capabilities and very lightweight address book.

This will be a successful product in migrating the barrios into email-happiness (bloods and cryps will now be able to email each other locations for potential bust-ups) but will not reach a huge market and will definitely NOT solve my particular problem.

http://www5.compaq.com/products/quickspecs/10632_na/10632_na.html Alas, the iPaq. With a derivative name and a similarly derivative Windows OS, need I say more? Definitely high on the cool factor, though, with lots of features, colour.. and the winner of hype-of-the-month club for sure. You can get Omnisky for the iPaq as well as other solutions, however it suffers my scorn for being in the same blast-radius as the Handspring and Palm as far as features. And expensive! Blech.

Conclusions:

What nobody (but me) understands is that this device is supposed to be much more than a personal organizer, or an email client, or a pager, or a mobile applications device. It’s the convergence of all of these things and in many respects of ME: the offloading of menial tasks in communications and organization normally stored in my failing brain, now handled by a convenient, wireless connected device. Web browsing is interesting. Allowing me to do things easily and from anywhere that I hate doing is great.

But who wants to shove cartridges in and out of the rear expansion slot every time they “change” modes? What is this, a frickin’ Game Boy? The wireless email application, and instant messaging for that matter, relies on a persistent data connection to be useful — it doesn’t want to be “turned off”. If you can’t keep it in there 24-7 because you have to remove the expansion card in order to run your PDA-based business accounting software, what’s the point? From a user behaviour perspective, it’s just as unreliable as regular email on a PC.

With all of the work that has gone into PDAs, nobody’s managed to hit it yet. Too much focus on the Personal and the Digital, and not enough on the Assistant.

The verdict? Maybe if I didn’t have a Mac I’d be all over the 957. I might give up on that cause and get one anyway, and pray that someone comes along and solves my sync problem.

-Ian.

C’mon… maybe it’s too early for satellite-based voice, but how about lots of little low bitrate applications like paging? I can think of a thousand uses for a roving satellite signaling network that require very little bandwidth and therefore represent better economies of scale — for example, satellite-based CDDB lookups for CDs so you can display track names on your car stereo! Cool!

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000317/bs/iridium_bids_8.html

Somebody’s gotta buy those satellites.

-Ian.