Top 5 Tech Failures!

After Years of Rumors, Facebook Finally Released Their Own Phone

It was a momentous day when Facebook finally released their own phone, the HTC First. After years of rumors and anticipation, fans were eager to get their hands on this highly-anticipated device. However, what they got was not exactly what they expected.

The HTC First came with two different versions: one that could be downloaded from the Google Play Store for free, and another that came pre-installed with Facebook Home. But these two options were essentially the same thing - a Facebook-powered interface that allowed users to access their social media accounts and share content with friends.

At first, it seemed like a great idea. Who wouldn't want to be able to fully integrate their phone with Facebook? However, sales of the HTC First were abysmal. In just one month, they managed to sell only 15,000 units, which is a staggering number considering that during the same time period, the Samsung Galaxy S4 was selling an astonishing 15,000 phones every hour.

It became clear that Facebook's approach had been flawed from the start. By releasing two versions of the phone with essentially the same functionality, they failed to create a compelling reason for customers to choose one over another. The HTC First was quickly relegated to obscurity, and it's still a rare sight to see one on the streets.

The Microsoft Xbox One: A Recipe for Disaster

Next up is the Microsoft Xbox One, which launched with great fanfare and high expectations. However, from the get-go, things went terribly wrong. The company spent more time talking about how the console would work with TV and television broadcasts than actually showcasing its gaming capabilities. And when they did reveal some cool games, it was too little, too late.

The Xbox One's launch price of $500 was also a major red flag. Not only was it significantly more expensive than the PlayStation 4, but the company's attempts to justify this pricing by touting the benefits of used game trading and digital distribution only served to alienate fans.

But perhaps the most egregious mistake was Microsoft's promise that the Xbox One would always be connected to the internet, with no option for offline gaming. This "always online" requirement sparked widespread outrage among gamers, who felt that it went against the very spirit of console gaming.

In a bizarre move, Microsoft took the stage at E3 and jokingly said they wouldn't be doing any of those things they had announced earlier. It was clear that the company had learned from its mistakes and would be taking a different approach with future consoles.

The Xbox One's Launch: A Cautionary Tale

Taking a closer look at the Xbox One's launch makes it clear that this is one of the biggest tech failures in recent history. From the mismanaged marketing to the poor pricing strategy, everything about the console's launch seemed designed to go wrong.

But what can we learn from Microsoft's mistakes? As we move forward into an increasingly complex and interconnected world, it's more important than ever for companies like Facebook and Microsoft to get it right when launching new products. Anything less is just a recipe for disaster.

The Power of Audiobooks

As I sit here listening to The Fault in Our Stars by John Green on my phone, I'm reminded of the power of audiobooks. With more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all genres and platforms, audible.com is an absolute treasure trove for book lovers.

I've always loved to read, but lately, I've found myself relying more and more on audible as my go-to source for entertainment. Whether I'm commuting to work or winding down before bed, there's nothing quite like getting lost in a good story.

So if you haven't tried audible yet, what are you waiting for? Head over to audible.com and use the code Austin to download The Fault in Our Stars or another book of your choice for free. Trust me, you won't regret it.

And that's all for today, folks! Be sure to leave a thumbs up and subscribe for more content like this.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys this is Austin and today I'm here with the top 5 tech failures so there are a lot of really great gadgets and there are a lot of not-so-great gadgets so let's take a look at some of those made number 5 we have Windows Vista this launched in 2007 as one of the biggest overhauls to windows ever and took a whopping five years to complete what finally shipped was a version of Windows which had more than a few issues so one of the biggest problems with Vista was the fact that a lot of things just flat-out didn't work anymore so printers were a big thing a lot of printers which worked fine on a Windows XP computer unless they were lucky enough to be updated to work with Vista were flat-out paperweights another was it it was big and bloated so Windows Vista need a much more powerful PC to run on than say XP and just for the record Windows 8 is 6 year old newer operating system actually runs better on older pcs than Vista so yeah it was definitely a step backward to be fair it wasn't all bad after about a year or so Microsoft had a lot of the early issues figured out however that didn't stop them from rushing out Windows 7 which is basically just what Vista should have been at number 4 we have the Google Nexus Q so this was a weird one Google announced the Nexus Q last year as a media player some amount of a competitor to the Apple TV in the Roku and that sort of thing however they already had a competitor in the Google TV so what exactly was the Nexus Q basically it was a bowling ball shaped media streamer that allowed you to watch youtube videos as well as listen to music and watch videos from Google Play and that's about it you had no Netflix no whoo no way to watch your own files nothing just YouTube and Google Play and did I mention it cost $300 so I don't think it takes a genius to realize that the Nexus Q never really got off the ground in fact Google ended up canceling it before it even came out and those few people who had pre-ordered the Nexus Q ended up getting them for free and Google quietly let the whole thing just disappear and number three we have Apple Maps so to understand this one put yourself in Apple shoes ever since the iPhone came out they have been relying on Google to supply Google Maps for the phone however as their new arch enemy they decided that hey we should totally be able to make a new Maps app we can stick it to Google and make something way better at first it looks really cool so they showed up a mode called flyover which basically allows you to fly around cities and a full 3d view pinch zoom all that stuff and then it came out and people realized it was a massive downgrade compared to the old Google Maps there was just a lot of stuff that was flat-out missing and to make things even worse there was no way to downgrade back to using Google Maps as opposed to the new Apple maps to make things even worse some things were just flat-out wrong so one entire town was marked as a hospital and some landmarks just disappeared straight off the map the first time I used it I was meeting a friend for dinner so I punch in the address into Apple maps and it proceeded to send me 20 minutes the wrong way before I realized that it had no idea where I was going oops and number two we had the HTC first after years of rumors the Facebook will be making their own phone earlier this year they finally did it cool right except it kind of wasn't what they actually released was two different things one was Facebook home now this is something that you could download on your Android phone and basically it would fully Facebook a fight and then there was the HTC first which had Facebook home pre-loaded however that was pretty much all it had going for it basically you had the choice of either downloading a free app from the Google Play Store or buying a phone which did the exact same thing clearly a recipe for success after a month on sale they'd sold a mere 15,000 HTC firsts now to give you some context to that during that same time the Samsung Galaxy s4 sold 15,000 phones every hour AT&T wasted no time in slashing the price of the first down to basically free other carriers around the world decided not to carry it and after only a couple months the HTC first was pretty much dead at number one we have the Microsoft Xbox one guys what were you thinking I mean I give it the Xbox one was definitely made to be a very forward-thinking console where the discs really weren't as important is everyone doing download-only kind of like hell Steamworks today however the way they actually executed it the way they talked about it the way they showed it off the way they just launched in general was just a absolute disaster so first they show off the console and then immediately spent the entire rest of the time talking about how it works with TV television television TV television television television television TV TV TV then once they finally showed off some cool games get some people interested they then announced that the price would be $500 $100 more than the PlayStation 4 and then they started going on about how used games work and how you could only trade them in with certain retailers if you want to give a game to a friend you had to be friends with them on Xbox Live for 30 days you always had to have Kinect on it was a bit of a mess the funny thing is all this would have probably blown over after a few months and silly not got up on stage III and said hey guys you know all that stuff Microsoft's doing yeah what I'm gonna be doing that immediately now the Xbox one looks like some horrible travesty of a game console it's got to always be connected that you can't use your own games with it was a nightmare so how does Microsoft respond basically go haha just kidding guys all that stuff we were talking about yeah we're totally not gonna do that you should be like the 360 guys just you know forget all that stuff that we said about me always online and the DRM and these games that we were just joking no big deal overall I think the Xbox one will be a solid console now however taking a look at that launch definitely makes it a massive massive disaster and it takes that in one spot for the biggest tech failure so I'm curious to know what's the biggest tech failure in your opinion definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below also I want to mention that this video is brought to you by audible audible.com is a leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature including fiction nonfiction and periodicals I've always loved to read and lately have really been enjoying using audible on my phone in the car as well as before I go to bed I'll grab my iPad and listen to a chapter or two lately I've been listening to a Fault in Our Stars by John Green a fantastic book that I read last year they've been really listening to if that's a word lately with audible if you guys haven't tried audible yet all you need to do is go to audible.com slash Austin to download The Fault in Our Stars or another book for free when you try audible it's an awesome service that I use all the time so definitely be sure to go to audible.com slash Austin and give it a shot if you're interested in more feel free to check out what to expect with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 death would be sure to leave this video a thumbs up and subscribe for more like this anyway guys I will catch you next time youhey guys this is Austin and today I'm here with the top 5 tech failures so there are a lot of really great gadgets and there are a lot of not-so-great gadgets so let's take a look at some of those made number 5 we have Windows Vista this launched in 2007 as one of the biggest overhauls to windows ever and took a whopping five years to complete what finally shipped was a version of Windows which had more than a few issues so one of the biggest problems with Vista was the fact that a lot of things just flat-out didn't work anymore so printers were a big thing a lot of printers which worked fine on a Windows XP computer unless they were lucky enough to be updated to work with Vista were flat-out paperweights another was it it was big and bloated so Windows Vista need a much more powerful PC to run on than say XP and just for the record Windows 8 is 6 year old newer operating system actually runs better on older pcs than Vista so yeah it was definitely a step backward to be fair it wasn't all bad after about a year or so Microsoft had a lot of the early issues figured out however that didn't stop them from rushing out Windows 7 which is basically just what Vista should have been at number 4 we have the Google Nexus Q so this was a weird one Google announced the Nexus Q last year as a media player some amount of a competitor to the Apple TV in the Roku and that sort of thing however they already had a competitor in the Google TV so what exactly was the Nexus Q basically it was a bowling ball shaped media streamer that allowed you to watch youtube videos as well as listen to music and watch videos from Google Play and that's about it you had no Netflix no whoo no way to watch your own files nothing just YouTube and Google Play and did I mention it cost $300 so I don't think it takes a genius to realize that the Nexus Q never really got off the ground in fact Google ended up canceling it before it even came out and those few people who had pre-ordered the Nexus Q ended up getting them for free and Google quietly let the whole thing just disappear and number three we have Apple Maps so to understand this one put yourself in Apple shoes ever since the iPhone came out they have been relying on Google to supply Google Maps for the phone however as their new arch enemy they decided that hey we should totally be able to make a new Maps app we can stick it to Google and make something way better at first it looks really cool so they showed up a mode called flyover which basically allows you to fly around cities and a full 3d view pinch zoom all that stuff and then it came out and people realized it was a massive downgrade compared to the old Google Maps there was just a lot of stuff that was flat-out missing and to make things even worse there was no way to downgrade back to using Google Maps as opposed to the new Apple maps to make things even worse some things were just flat-out wrong so one entire town was marked as a hospital and some landmarks just disappeared straight off the map the first time I used it I was meeting a friend for dinner so I punch in the address into Apple maps and it proceeded to send me 20 minutes the wrong way before I realized that it had no idea where I was going oops and number two we had the HTC first after years of rumors the Facebook will be making their own phone earlier this year they finally did it cool right except it kind of wasn't what they actually released was two different things one was Facebook home now this is something that you could download on your Android phone and basically it would fully Facebook a fight and then there was the HTC first which had Facebook home pre-loaded however that was pretty much all it had going for it basically you had the choice of either downloading a free app from the Google Play Store or buying a phone which did the exact same thing clearly a recipe for success after a month on sale they'd sold a mere 15,000 HTC firsts now to give you some context to that during that same time the Samsung Galaxy s4 sold 15,000 phones every hour AT&T wasted no time in slashing the price of the first down to basically free other carriers around the world decided not to carry it and after only a couple months the HTC first was pretty much dead at number one we have the Microsoft Xbox one guys what were you thinking I mean I give it the Xbox one was definitely made to be a very forward-thinking console where the discs really weren't as important is everyone doing download-only kind of like hell Steamworks today however the way they actually executed it the way they talked about it the way they showed it off the way they just launched in general was just a absolute disaster so first they show off the console and then immediately spent the entire rest of the time talking about how it works with TV television television TV television television television television TV TV TV then once they finally showed off some cool games get some people interested they then announced that the price would be $500 $100 more than the PlayStation 4 and then they started going on about how used games work and how you could only trade them in with certain retailers if you want to give a game to a friend you had to be friends with them on Xbox Live for 30 days you always had to have Kinect on it was a bit of a mess the funny thing is all this would have probably blown over after a few months and silly not got up on stage III and said hey guys you know all that stuff Microsoft's doing yeah what I'm gonna be doing that immediately now the Xbox one looks like some horrible travesty of a game console it's got to always be connected that you can't use your own games with it was a nightmare so how does Microsoft respond basically go haha just kidding guys all that stuff we were talking about yeah we're totally not gonna do that you should be like the 360 guys just you know forget all that stuff that we said about me always online and the DRM and these games that we were just joking no big deal overall I think the Xbox one will be a solid console now however taking a look at that launch definitely makes it a massive massive disaster and it takes that in one spot for the biggest tech failure so I'm curious to know what's the biggest tech failure in your opinion definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below also I want to mention that this video is brought to you by audible audible.com is a leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature including fiction nonfiction and periodicals I've always loved to read and lately have really been enjoying using audible on my phone in the car as well as before I go to bed I'll grab my iPad and listen to a chapter or two lately I've been listening to a Fault in Our Stars by John Green a fantastic book that I read last year they've been really listening to if that's a word lately with audible if you guys haven't tried audible yet all you need to do is go to audible.com slash Austin to download The Fault in Our Stars or another book for free when you try audible it's an awesome service that I use all the time so definitely be sure to go to audible.com slash Austin and give it a shot if you're interested in more feel free to check out what to expect with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 death would be sure to leave this video a thumbs up and subscribe for more like this anyway guys I will catch you next time you