There have been a great number of consumer tech products released this year that have, as is typical of the industry, been launched with the promise that they’ll dramatically enhance or, in some particularly hyperbolic cases, revolutionize their particular field and/or the way we interact with the world around us.
We’ve seen the release of brand new operating systems that have overhauled the way we control our desktops, wearables that jostled for our attention alongside new smartphones, and more drones than we knew really what to do with. However, some products failed to match our expectations and the initial excitement we felt when they were first announced.
While the following tech products weren’t necessarily of poor quality, they also failed to live up to the hype. Here are the top 10 most disappointing tech products of 2015:
Top 10 Most Disappointing Tech Products of 2015
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10. Amazon Fire HD 10 / Amazon Fire HD 8
Amazon has been back and forth with its tablets, continuously trying to hit that sweet spot between affordability and functionality. The Amazon Fire HD 10 and Amazon Fire HD 8 (lumped together because of their almost identical specs, save for their display sizes) both boasted low prices upon launch, but unfortunately failed to do much else aside from offer another screen on which to explore Prime features.
The Amazon Fire HD 10/HD 8 are essentially tools to facilitate streaming content using Prime Instant Video, with the devices serving to underwhelm when performing most other tasks outside of connecting you to Amazon's own services. Try as they might, Amazon continue to struggle when it comes to nailing the tablet.
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9. Tidal
Jay-Z's music streaming service had perhaps one of the most widely criticized launches of any company within the past decade. Enlisting the aid of a horde of his celebrity friends, Tidal didn't sell itself on the promise of offering its potential customers a better product than the one offered by the likes of Spotify, but instead attempted to tug on our heartstrings by highlighting how streaming services don't pay musicians an acceptable percentage of their profits.
This may have been tolerable if Tidal's promotional campaign was forged on the back of little-known artists, but having the likes of Beyonce and Daft Punk sitting alongside Jay-Z while he informed us plebeians that we weren't giving enough to struggling musicians was intolerable.
Its heavily misguided marketing led to many choosing to overlook the service, opting to stick with Spotify instead, and led to a PR disaster for all involved.
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8. Apple TV
While Apple were readying up their announcement of the iPhone 6s, many people were more excited about what their next incarnation of the underwhelming Apple TV would look like.
Considering Apple's foray into the world of digital media players has been considered a blotch on the company's otherwise exceptional product line-up, many thought that the 2015 Apple TV would remedy this. Unfortunately, while it was a satisfactory piece of kit, it hardly revolutionized watching TV in the way that Apple suggested it would.
With a focus upon gaming that no one really asked for, Apple TV's sleeker operating system and implementation of Siri unfortunately failed to set the world alight, instead being just another digital media player albeit with a few extra bells 'n' whistles. Also, no 4K support?! What is this, 2014?
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7. Steam Controller
When the Steam controller was first announced, it looked like it was either going to be a bizarre oddity that we'd all laugh about in a few years time, or something that could legitimately alter the way we play video games. The complete removal of the analog sticks in favor of two touchpads was a big departure from what gamers expected from their controllers, and led the majority to consider just how this setup would work.
Creators Valve eventually decided upon introducing a sole analog stick to sit alongside the touchpads, but the end result wasn't the revolution we had been hoping for. While the Steam controller provided a satisfying experience after some time spent getting used to it, it wasn't the ideal setup for many games and was a lot less reliable than the trust Xbox 360 controller for PC gamers.
Valve was onto something here, but unfortunately it didn't quite bridge the gap between controller and keyboard/mouse as they had hoped it would.
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6. Lexus Hoverboard
It's becoming an increasingly frequent trend for companies to facetiously claim that they've developed the first correctly functioning hoverboard, only for us then to learn that the hoverboard will only work under a very specific set of circumstances. Prior to Lexus' entrance into this niche market, the closest we'd come to assuming the role of Marty McFly was with the Hendo Hoverboard, advertised by Tony Hawk himself, which required magnetized flooring in order to work and would essentially mean you'd have to create your own skate park in order to ride on one.
The Lexus Hoverboard was certainly more appealing on the eye than Hendo's beast when it was first announced, and appeared to show it working on an actual outdoor skate park, but then came the realization that, no, it would still require a heap of magnets in order to work, and that you wasn't going to get your hands on one. It was a good marketing tool for Lexus, but little else.
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5. The Buccaneer
3D printing was a hot topic in the tech world in 2015, but although the concept was exciting, it seemed inconceivable that it would make its way into the hands of consumers at a reasonable price point.
The Buccaneer, then, sounded a little too good to be true - and that's because it was. Offering a "3D printer that everyone can use," the affordable printer raised a record-breaking $1.5 million on Kickstarter, only for its creators to fold and only 60% of its backers receiving the machine that they had paid for.
The Buccaneer was one of many Kickstarter projects that failed to follow through on its promises this year, but considering that it was intended to offer a cheaper gateway into 3D printing for consumers, it was by far the most disappointing.
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4. Samsung Galaxy View
The preposterously sized Samsung Galaxy View took the growing trend of sizable screens for mobile devices and went one step further, and the end result was an odd experiment for the Korean company that didn't particularly pay off.
With its whopping 18.4-inch screen, the Galaxy View was practically a portable TV, and retailing for a hefty $600, its price certainly indicated that it was more than just your run-of-the-mill Android tablet.
However, unlike the large iPad Pro (which at 12.9 inches is still dwarfed by the View), Samsung's tablet failed to really capitalize on its massive screen, instead targeting it mostly towards people who wanted to watch media on a larger screen than currently offered by their existing tablet/phone. As such it was an unessential device that achieved its goal of being bigger than its competitors, but didn't concern itself with aiming to be better.
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3. Apple Music
Apple Music was supposed to usurp Spotify as the next big streaming platform. With the biggest company in tech at its helm, the launch of its exclusive radio station being helmed by the internationally renowned DJ Zane Lowe and it being heavily marketed until the day of its launch, all signs pointed to Apple Music being the next big player in the streaming game. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be the case.
Apple Music's three-month free trial led to a bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon early, with 11 million people having subscribed to the service within four weeks. However, considering that accounts for just 2% of the 500 million iPhones in consumers' hands, that number is less impressive than it initially seems.
But compared to Spotify's user base, Apple Music did reportedly manage to attract nearly a third of the amount of the subscribers its biggest competitor has, though this number seems destined to decline given the service's misgivings. Firstly, its incredibly cluttered UI bursting at the seams with information means that navigating the service is a nightmare. Secondly, its coalescence with iTunes makes for a confusing experience, with desktop users being pushed and pulled between the two, being forced to navigate between two user-unfriendly services other than one.
Apple is unlikely to give up on Apple Music and it may improve down the line, but as of 2015, it's one of two majorly disappointing contenders to Spotify's throne.
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2. HTC One M9
HTC have been developing some of the very best smartphones available on the market in recent years, and after the HTC One M8 blew us away in 2014, many were expecting great things from its successor.
Unfortunately, while the HTC One M9 wasn't a bad smartphone by any stretch of the imagination, it didn't up the ante in any meaningful way and proved to be a mostly unnecessary upgrade from HTC's previous device. While it still sported a premium build and housed a microSD slot, it suffered from an underwhelming camera, a sub-par display and a battery life that didn't failed to better the M8's, it failed to live up to our expectations of what a HTC flagship phone should be.
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1. Apple Watch
Three Apple products in one list may seem like overkill, but while the company release plenty of wonderful products (this year's iPhone 6s and iPad Pro to name but a few), their positioning as the most talked-about manufacturer in the tech world inevitably means that some of their products will fail to live up to expectations. With the company being big fans of hyperbole, it seems like the majority of their new hardware releases come with the promise of revolutionizing their particular market, but although the Apple Watch proved to be one of the best wearables on the market, it still failed to display the ingenuity that made the likes of the iPod and iPhone such essential purchases.
Prior to the launch of the Apple Watch, the biggest question asked of the company's new device was "why would I need this when I've already got a smartphone?" Unfortunately, the answer was "you don't." In actuality, the Apple Watch functioned much better as an iPhone accessory than it did its own standalone device, and even when WatchOS2 rolled around it still failed to stand on its own two feet.
Prior to its release, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the Watch would “the next chapter in Apple’s story.” However, in reality it was more like a pleasant interlude, giving iPhone owners a new toy to play with but little else.
