17 technologies that died in 2022
Table of Contents
The year is coming to an end, just as some technologies that died in 2022 have come to an end. Products, services and companies that were once highly relevant — and some that remained obscure — ended their life cycle last year, and as part of retrospectives , we bring you an overview of what ended in 2022. Shall we check it out?
popcorn Time
O popcorn Time emerged with the premise of being the Netflix of pirated content. Its simple interface, which was very reminiscent of the main streaming service in the world, allowed users to have free access to movies and series, whether releases that were still in cinemas or classics of the seventh art.
The platform was based on torrent sites, which allowed for a vast collection of titles. Given the massive amount of piracy involved in streaming over the platform, its demise had nothing to do with lawsuits. With the growth of streaming platforms, in addition to competition with other pirated content distribution services, this has led to a decrease in the use of popcorn Time, which led to its closure in January 2022.
BlackBerry
In the early 2000s, cell phones began to gain more functionality than just calling, sending SMS and playing the snake game. And the BlackBerry emerged bringing many innovations to this market, such as the full QWERTY keyboard and applications aimed at communication and work, such as e-mail and the exclusive messenger BBM.
With all their functionalities, the models of BlackBerry became objects of desire, until... iPhone appeared in 2007. With its new interface without a keyboard and the screen that occupies the entire front of the device, the iPhone left BlackBerry with an old-fashioned way, and the market soon saw more models with touch screens (mostly devices Android), which were taking the place of BlackBerries. The company announced its demise in January 2002.
Firefox Reality
A Mozilla had in its portfolio a navigator open-source dedicated to virtual and augmented reality, which debuted in 2018 to Oculus, Google Daydream e HTC Vive. However, the company stopped development of the browser, so that it did not keep up with the evolution of devices on the market, leading to its closure in February 2022.
Uber Eats in Brazil
The food delivery platform of Uber is strong in international markets. However, competition with iFood e Rappi in Brazil made the company give up on this market, focusing its efforts on its main product, transporting people, and on fast deliveries.
CNN+
The news giant debuted its streaming service with live content and on demand in March 2022, but with the acquisition of Warner Media (owner of CNN) with the Discovery ended up ending the new service just after a month of its debut.
iPod
This was the product that helped transform the music industry to the way we know it today.
The first iPod was presented in 2001, 21 years ago, by Steve Jobs. At the time, other MP3 players already existed (the first launched was the Rio PMP300, in 1998), taking advantage of the popularization of MP3s and the growth of P2P sharing networks, such as Napster and KaZaa.
However, the music industry was already at war with P2P networks that were reducing their revenues, as the transferred content was obviously pirated. With the iPod, Apple introduced a new way of distributing music that, if it seems common today, was disruptive at the time: the iTunes Store sold digital music directly from its catalog, in an easy and organized way, and without the need to buy a entire album — which is the way the industry has established it since the dawn of the vinyl record.
And the songs distributed through the iTunes Store were made to play on the iPod, which was designed to be an easy-to-use gadget with the capacity to store many songs. Along with the funky advertising and distinctive design of Apple products, the iPod became a hit with young people — everyone wanted the iconic white earbuds in their ears.
The beginning of the end for the iPod began in 2007 with the release of iPhone, which included in one phone all the functionalities of iPod Touch. Over time, the iPhone gained relevance to the point of eclipsing the iPod, which stopped receiving updates and saw the line dwindle to just the iPod Touch model, which was discontinued in May of this year.
Internet Explorer
After 25 years of its launch, the Microsoft decided end the lifecycle of the Internet Explorer. Emerged as a competitor to the Netscape, actually the IE was never a good browser, but it was widely used by consumers because it was offered as a component of the Windows from 1995 — a fact that also started the antitrust lawsuit suffered by the company, which was accused of monopoly for forcing computer manufacturers to install Explorer on new PCs.
Microsoft's classic browser has been losing relevance with the ever-increasing presence of Google Chrome, which featured greater stability and compatibility with internet sites, in addition to the presence of extensions to facilitate the user's daily life. In 2015 the company launched the Microsoft Edge as a replacement for Internet Explorer, which had its development terminated and has since received only security updates. If you still use IE, get ready, because Microsoft is going to permanently disable internet explorer in February 2023.
Spotify Car Thing
The leading music streaming service has launched the Car Thing, a device designed to be used on car dashboards. Focused on vehicles that do not have multimedia centers compatible with Android Auto e Apple CarPlay, Car Thing featured a touch screen accompanied by a rotary button that, in principle, would facilitate navigation through the application's library.
However, the user experience does not differ much from what the application offers on smartphones, and with the increasing presence of CarPlay and Android Auto in vehicles, the Spotify decided to stop production of the Car Thing in July 2022.
YouTube Go
This version of the YouTube app, released in 2016, is designed for developing countries. In these locations, the high cost of data plans and poor internet quality led the company to develop an app that, at the cost of reducing the quality of videos, allowed wide access to videos on the platform. When the company announced the end of the app, it said that advances in network infrastructure made the application obsolete.
Google Stadia
Another product that enters the cemetery of Google, Stadia emerged in 2019 as the future of cloud-based games, which dispense with a console or PC to run game titles. The company decided to pull the service plug out of the socket for not having reached its expectations of users, and offered the return of the money spent by players with the purchase of games and devices on the platform.
iPhonemini
Released as a version of iPhone 12 on 2020, the iPhonemini arrived on the market as an option for consumers who would like to have a slightly smaller smartphone that would fit easier in the palm of the hand. The market, however, did not have enough demand for this variant, which lasted only until the iPhone 13.
Uber Rewards
A Uber had a loyalty program for its users, in which it offered points for each ride on the transport application or order through the Uber Eats. Points entitle you to better support through the app and preferential rides with highly rated drivers.
The program has no substitute, however in international markets there is the UberOne, with a $10 monthly fee that offers free delivery and discounts on rides.
Argo AI
The self-driving car startup funded by Ford e VW ended its activities in October. The company aimed to develop level 4 autonomous vehicle technology by 2021, however it was not able to reach the level of automation where the steering wheel of the vehicle can be dispensed with.
The company's employees and the knowledge developed were distributed between the two automakers, with the aim of continuing to individually develop autonomous driving systems.
Lego Mindstorms
In 1998 the Lego introduced its first kit of programmable robots to the market, with the aim of promoting robotics education for children — but which had a loyal audience in adults. the kit Lego Mindstorms Robot Inventor allowed to assemble five different robots with its 949 parts.
The company decided to close this product line to direct its priorities to programs LEGO Education e Build & Code.
Meta Portal
The smart display division of Meta, which emerged as Facebook Portal, ended its activities in November. Tough competition with smart displays Amazon Echo e Google Nest, along with the company's strategy to prioritize the development of the metaverse, led to the end of the division - which was also working on a smartwatch. the devices Portal were not sold in Brazil.
Google Hangouts
Announced in July of this year, the end of Google Hangouts took place in early November 2022. The chat and audio and video call platform integrated with the gmail gave space to Google Chat, the online collaboration platform of the company that intends to compete with Slack.
FTX
Little known in Brazil, the cryptocurrency platform FTX gained prominence in the news in November 2022 for having its declared bankruptcy after liquidity problems, evidencing manipulation in the crypto market. The company is being investigated for fraud after more than $1 billion worth of customers disappeared from its accounts, and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried fled to the Bahamas - only to be arrested and extradited back to the US.
Are you already missing any of these technologies? Tell us in the comments!
Sources: PCMag, Mashable, Mint
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