Tech We Lost in 2016: Vine, Meerkat and the Headphone Jack — post content
This year gave us some of our favorite technologies, but of course it wasn't all good news.
As every year, companies were shut down, applications were removed, and some technology toys disappeared from store shelves in favor of better ones.
From VCRs and Pebble to Vine and Meerkat, 2016 left us with quite a few dead technologies.
Let's take a look back to remember all the technologies we lost this year:
Okay, yes, technically the 3.5 mm jack still exists. But after Apple's "courageous" decision to remove the headphone jack, the iPhone 7 is already seen as a source of inspiration for other manufacturers (HTC and Motorola among them) who are likely to continue down the same path—an example of a transformation. The days of the headphone jack are now definitely numbered.
The death of Vine wasn't surprising at all to its creators' community, who had long called it their creative home. But Twitter was disappointed when it planned to wind down the video app it acquired in 2013. In Vine's golden age, many big names earned fame thanks to Vine and their digital influence. A few Vine stars even lived on the same floor of a building on Hollywood's Vine Street (yes, really). However, Twitter recently said it plans to keep Vine alive with the Vine Camera app. -Saba Hamedy
For a brief time, Samsung was unstoppable. The company unveiled the Galaxy Note7, which shone in reviews. Mashable even called it the best smartphone on the planet before revoking its Mashable Choice award. The Note7 had everything you wanted in a beautiful, premium phone, including a headphone jack. But the ambitious phone aimed at toppling Apple's iPhone 7 went up in flames almost as fast as it shot to the top.
Faulty batteries and an extremely ambitious design with tight tolerances are believed to be the causes of the Note7's death. Although we won't know the future of the Note7 in favor of Android, we hope that Samsung learned valuable lessons from these mistakes and that the Note 8 will be a safer phone for everyone.
If you've never had to hold a VCR cassette before, perhaps... you may not be missing out. Funai Electric, the world's last surviving Japanese VCR manufacturer, took a historic step in July, 40 years after the first VCR was made, and discontinued production of the videocassette recording format.
Sorry, Android enthusiasts, it looks like there will never be another Nexus-branded phone.
Launched in 2010 with the Nexus One, the brand that was once synonymous with Google and Android is no more. With the launch of the Pixel phones this year, Google made it clear it no longer wants to share the spotlight with hardware partners.
When everyone gets into live video, only the best of the survivors makes it. Meerkat was one of the first to enter this space, and although it gained early-stage and celebrity users when it first appeared in 2015, it couldn't endure when Twitter, Facebook, and even Instagram brought together their own live streaming platforms.
The app was removed from the App Store in September. Is there enough consumer appetite for users to wander between social media's heavy weight pushing real-time video so hard? Meerkat ended up finished after exploring this difficult path in that uncertainty. But the founders didn't feel too bad about it. Meerkat is now continuing on its way after striking a deal with a new social video app, Houseparty.
Headphone Jack
Okay, yes, technically the 3.5 mm jack still exists. But after Apple's "courageous" decision to remove the headphone jack, the iPhone 7 is already seen as a source of inspiration for other manufacturers (HTC and Motorola among them) who are likely to continue down the same path—an example of a transformation. The days of the headphone jack are now definitely numbered.
The vision of a wireless future where headphones no longer connect to our devices, providing crystal-clear and reliable audio connections, sounds appealing. But today this wireless nirvana is hard to see in all the dongles. -Pete Pachal
Vine
The death of Vine wasn't surprising at all to its creators' community, who had long called it their creative home. But Twitter was disappointed when it planned to wind down the video app it acquired in 2013. In Vine's golden age, many big names earned fame thanks to Vine and their digital influence. A few Vine stars even lived on the same floor of a building on Hollywood's Vine Street (yes, really). However, Twitter recently said it plans to keep Vine alive with the Vine Camera app. -Saba Hamedy
Galaxy Note 7
For a brief time, Samsung was unstoppable. The company unveiled the Galaxy Note7, which shone in reviews. Mashable even called it the best smartphone on the planet before revoking its Mashable Choice award. The Note7 had everything you wanted in a beautiful, premium phone, including a headphone jack. But the ambitious phone aimed at toppling Apple's iPhone 7 went up in flames almost as fast as it shot to the top.
Faulty batteries and an extremely ambitious design with tight tolerances are believed to be the causes of the Note7's death. Although we won't know the future of the Note7 in favor of Android, we hope that Samsung learned valuable lessons from these mistakes and that the Note 8 will be a safer phone for everyone.
VCR
If you've never had to hold a VCR cassette before, perhaps... you may not be missing out. Funai Electric, the world's last surviving Japanese VCR manufacturer, took a historic step in July, 40 years after the first VCR was made, and discontinued production of the videocassette recording format.
Funai, which started making VCRs 30 years ago, used to sell tens of millions of devices at the format's peak, but last year managed to sell only 750,000 units. VCRs allowed people to record black-striped tapes of broadcast television in their homes. In the 90s, it is estimated that VCRs were found in 95 percent of homes in the U.S.
The Nexus Brand
Meerkat
When everyone gets into live video, only the best of the survivors makes it. Meerkat was one of the first to enter this space, and although it gained early-stage and celebrity users when it first appeared in 2015, it couldn't endure when Twitter, Facebook, and even Instagram brought together their own live streaming platforms.
The app was removed from the App Store in September. Is there enough consumer appetite for users to wander between social media's heavy weight pushing real-time video so hard? Meerkat ended up finished after exploring this difficult path in that uncertainty. But the founders didn't feel too bad about it. Meerkat is now continuing on its way after striking a deal with a new social video app, Houseparty.
