The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

The Complete List of Losers

1. America Online (1989-2006)
2. RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
3. Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
4. Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
5. Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
7. Microsoft Bob (1995)
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
9. Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)
10. dBASE IV (1988)
11. Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)
12. PointCast (1996)
13. IBM PCjr. (1984)
14. Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)
15. Iomega Zip Drive (1998)
16. Comet Cursor (1997)
17. Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)
18. IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)
19. OQO Model 1 (2004)
20. CueCat (2000)
21. Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
22. Apple Pippin @World (1996)
23. Free PCs (1999)
24. DigiScents iSmell (2001)
25. Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004)

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,8,00.asp

(Dis)Honorable Mention

They may not have scored a spot in our baker's two dozen of infamy,
but these ten products were too flawed to be forgotten.

Apple Newton MessagePad (1994): Yes, we know that the Apple Newton
also happens to be number 28 on our list of the 50 greatest gadgets
(so no letters, please). But while Apple's innovative concept won
kudos, the Newton's execution was lacking, especially in its first
version. Aside from its famously awful handwriting recognition, the
Newton was too bulky and too expensive for all but Apple acolytes.

Apple Puck Mouse (1998): Introduced with the original iMac, Apple's
stylishly round hockey-puck-shaped mouse had only one button (natch),
but figuring out where that button was and orienting the mouse without
looking down created an ergonomic nightmare. Apple added a small
indentation in a later version so you could figure out where to put
your finger, but you still had to find the indentation. The puck got
chucked a couple years after it was introduced.

Apple Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (1997): Learning nothing from
Gateway 2000's fiasco a couple of year's earlier with its 10th
Anniversary PC, Apple in 1997 released a specially designed
bronze-colored Mac to celebrate its 20th year of making computers.
This one came with a Bose sound system and leather palm rests, but it
also had a weak processor, no network card, and a slow CD-ROM drive
(because a faster one couldn't be mounted vertically in its special
case). To participate in the celebration, Mac lovers had to plunk down
$7500--three times what the same computer cost in a different case. It
may qualify as the priciest case mod of all time. Steve Jobs might
have bought one; we doubt whether many others did.

Circuit City DiVX DVDs (1998): Remember the disposable DVD? Circuit
City's attempt at starting its own pay-per-view movie service entailed
proprietary set-top players and disposable DiVX movie discs that
expired 48 hours after you started watching them. The player required
a phone line so it could check whether you had permission to watch.
But as it turned out, consumers preferred their DVDs without strings,
and Circuit City ended up dropping $114 million on its little
experiment.

Click for enlarged view. Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless Digital Camera
(2004): The first Bluetooth-enabled digital camera cost a little more
than otherwise comparable drugstore cameras, but for the premium you
got the ability to transfer 7MB of images in a nap-inducing 15
minutes. (Transfer time using an old-fashioned USB cable: 8 seconds.)
The Bluetooth was a bust, the camera was crude, and the pictures were
awful. Aside from that, it was just fabulous.

Dell SL320i (1993): The Ford Pinto of notebook PCs, this model had the
unfortunate habit of combusting and eventually had to be recalled.
Laptops from Apple, HP, and Sony, as well as a handful of other Dell
models suffered similar overheating problems over the years, but the
SL320i blazed the trail.

Motorola Rokr E1 Motorola Rokr E1 (2005): The world's most popular
digital music player meets the world's coolest looking phones; what
could possibly go wrong? Well, plenty. The Rokr E1 held only about a
hundred songs, file transfers were painfully slow, the iTunes
interface was sluggish, and--duh--you couldn't download tunes via a
cell connection. This phone ain't rockin', so don't bother knockin'.

Into the dustbin of history: Audrey was an expensive two-trick
appliance (e-mail and Web browsing). 3Com Audrey (1999): Some of us
had a soft spot in our hearts for Audrey, the Internet appliance--that
supple form, the cute way her light blinked green when a new e-mail
message arrived. But with limited functionality and no broadband
support, she failed to excite the masses, instead becoming a symbol of
why Net appliances bombed.

Timex Data Link Watch (1995): This early wristwatch/PDA looked like a
Casio on steroids. To download data to it, you held it in front of
your CRT monitor while the monitor displayed a pattern of flashing
black-and-white stripes (which, incidentally, also turned you into the
Manchurian Candidate). Depending on your point of view, it was either
seriously cool or deeply disturbing.

WebTV (1995): Getting the Web to display on a typical TV in 1995 was
like watching an elephant tap-dance--you were amazed not that it could
do it well but that it could do it at all. With the WebTV, Web pages
looked horsey, some media formats didn't work at all, and using the
remote control to hop from link to link was excruciating.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,7,00.asp

==
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