Is This The Worst Tech Ever? #Helpful Post

ey guys, this is Austin.

There's been a lot of bad tech over the years

but this might just be some of the worst.

Kicking things off is the Microsoft Kin.

This was a weird one.

It all started when Microsoft

bought the makers of the Sidekick.

- Everybody needs a Sidekick.

- [Austin] They then invested over a billion dollars

into developing the Kin line, which didn't exactly do well.

The entire project did so poorly

that it was cancelled within two months.

But why was it so bad?

My friend Ralphy and I decided to find out.

- Nice dude.

- This is the Microsoft Kin.

First of all, that screen is tiny.

When we compare it to a modern smartphone,

that's tiny.

But of course we have the physical keyboard.

- Do you have a physical keyboard on your iPhone?

- I actually don't.

- [Ralphy] Does it run Android?

- [Austin] So on the back, Windows Phone.

- Oh, that is, that is a thing right there.

I mean, there's no support for normal apps on there, right?

It's not Android.

- So no, there are no apps at all, period, here.

As though it's essentially a feature phone,

the Kin was nearly as expensive as a smartphone

and with competition like the iPhone

and the original Samsung Galaxy,

it was no surprise that it flopped so badly.

Worst of all, less than a year after launch,

the Kin site shut down,

making it even less useful by removing the social features,

ending one of the biggest failures in modern tech.

Another phone that was a pretty spectacular flop

was the Amazon Fire Phone.

Launched in 2014 after years of rumors

that Amazon was working on a phone,

the Fire came out to quite a bit of hype.

So this is still in the wrap.

So basically all four of the cameras around the edges

are all about being able to track your face, so if you--

- [Ralphy] Hey man, you got the octopus on you, man!

Run!

- So the crazy thing about the Fire Phone

was that it started out at $650.

However by the time they were discontinuing it,

it was $160, and that included a free year of Amazon Prime,

which was worth 100 bucks.

I think one of the big problems with Amazon Fire Phone

was that it ran FireOS.

That is a version of Android but if you look through here,

it looks almost nothing like, well, traditional Android.

Surprise, surprise, the Fire Phone didn't sell well.

It at least stayed on sale for a year

but it was an AT&T; exclusive at first

and Amazon had to write off

at least $170 million on the project.

Next up we've got the BlackBerry PlayBook.

This was an interesting one.

Launched in 2011, a year after the first iPad,

it actually had a lot of features that were an improvement.

Real multitasking and respectable hardware

helped the PlayBook to actually be fairly decent,

but starting at $500

it was absolutely not a finished product at launch.

What you're unboxing right now

is a product that is over five years old.

- Oh, you see that?

Trick shot, dude.

- [Austin] Dude, this actually is a nice piece of hardware.

You have dual front-facing speakers.

- [Ralphy] Ooh!

- It's kinda gotta nice sort of

finish on the back.

I remember actually when this first came out,

I was at CES.

I actually did a video on the PlayBook

and I was pretty excited.

This thing looked really cool.

I think it was so hard to compete with the iPad

and I know they spent a lot of money developing this,

especially the software.

I don't think BlackBerry ever really fully recovered.

After a series of price drops and software updates,

the PlayBook ended up selling decently

but it still was cancelled

and BlackBerry wrote off nearly half a billion dollars

just to clear the inventory

that was sitting on store shelves.

- Hey man, what's on your shirt?

- Ah, it's funny you mention that.

That's the brand new Austin Ekans shirt,

available for a limited time on Teespring.

- Get it now before it disappears.

- It might run away from you, like Pokemon Go.

- Ha ha!

- See, we're, like, topical.

- [Ralphy] Yeah, you might want to

give this shirt a Razz Berry.

- For real though, if you guys want to check out this shirt,

the link will be in the description.

And something else you guys can check out

is a video I did over on Ralphy's channel

where we checked out some of those hot new Pokemons.

- Mmm, I love those Pokemons.

- Anyway guys, thank you so much for watching

and I will catch you at the next one.

Hey, guys!

So, you should buy my new T-shirt!

It's really good!