First, Sun Microsystems.
Second, maybe Radioshack.
Third, the twillight zone.
Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
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Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#592RoboDJ, an old Winamp plugin.
I have an absurdly large music collection, and tend to listen while I work. I tried doing the 'just queue up albums and hit play' model. Random songs I'd picked up from nowhere, or albums I'd forgotten I'd got, just slipped out altogether. Shuffling the whole collection means you end up listening to a lot of mediocrity.
RoboDJ let me score each song (with default values for unscored content), then auto fed my playlist with a weighted average. It wasn't perfect - it could crash and wipe your library, and its maths model contained a basic flaw which caused averages to drift off. But it provided a really pretty good experience of having a personalised radio station, and did a much better job of normalising content across slightly inconsistent tagging than any other library plugin I've used.
I've now got some really complicated smart playlists on iTunes which almost do as well, but they're much less powerful. Plus Apple pushed through a change in a software update a while back which stopped anything but trivial smart playlists updating on the device, which kills that unless you sync every day. Not great when you're travelling and the massive library is on the home NAS. Plus, that iPod classic isn't going to live forever.
One day, I'll find the time to write the player app for Android that'll replicate RoboDJ, minus the dodgy averages, plus some extra features I wanted. I know what I want, it's not that complicated a tool at its core. But there's always something more important than 'slightly nicer auto playing music' to write :-\
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has ditched so many cool things in the MacBook line. 1) MagSafe. I know they really want to go all in on USB-C, but the original MagSafe connector was awesome. Even the weaker 2.0 version was nice. There were two instances where that connector saved my laptop. 2) The laser-drilled power indicator. That was so cool. It looked like the light magically appeared through the aluminum. Now there's no indication whats…
While I also love MagSafe and its features, wouldn't having a more standard port is much better? iPhones are constantly bashed by a group of users because of not having USB-C connectors. Having four USB-C ports with identical capabilities on a MacBook pro is a more pragmatic and flexible solution to have, when compared to MagSafe. On the power level and power button issue, Apple changes its features to shape customer…
Re the now removed power light, it’s a real pain point for me as I now cannot trust my laptop is truly asleep when I close the lid. Previously I’d just wait for the light to start “breathing” and I know it’s sleeping.
I’ve been caught out several times now on the new units where I closed the lid and came back hours later only to find the laptop still on and very warm.
Mostly seems down to VMs or backups running that don’t seem to want to suspend. So now I always suspend my VMs and stop backups. Which slows down my workflow greatly since it takes a minute each to suspend and resume the VM itself. I also find myself holding the laptop undercarriage right up against my ear listening for the whirring of the fans and if they stop. I look like a right idiot doing it, but there’s no other way to tell.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#594Westwood Studios. I loved their games including their final game C&C Renegade, even though EA rushed Renegade out the door and shut the studio down.
RIP Westwood. They made some awesome games and I spent so many hours playing them...
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#595Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I'm sure there were many reasons it died, but my theory is that Google strategically wanted to kill it because the User was in control of the data-sources and the algorithm. Google wanted people to migrate to Google+, News, etc. where they control what you see. This is what Facebook and Twitter did. Their feeds used to be a simple chrono sort of sources you determined, but then they slowly took control. In my…
I can't figure out what I've read up to on Twitter anymore since it shuffles tweets around and inserts random "your follower also follows this person" tweets which I didn't ask for
Have you tried using Tweetdeck? It puts that kind of stuff in a separate column which you can show or hide as you wish. The main column is chronological.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#597Ducksboard, it was a prettier geckoboard alternative which worked better. Acquired by New relic to integrate into insights IIRC.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#598Ensemble Studios, makers of Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, and Age of Mythology, some of the best RTSs ever made. There are other great RTSs, but they're all great in different ways from the Age series, which nothing else resembles. Microsoft bought them, and shut them down not long after for insufficient profits. Sigh. Age of Empires IV is being made now since they noticed there's demand, but the studio they chos…
In the same vein, I really miss Bullfrog, and the company that was formed after Bullfrog was shuttered, Mucky Foot. They made some of the best casual RTS games I've ever played, particularly Dungeon Keeper and Startopia.
I still play them to this day despite having spent thousands and thousands of hours on both, to the extent that I know them inside out, and yet they've never stopped being fun.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#599Sun Microsystems, especially after hearing more about the company, it’s culture and products from this [0] talk posted in this [1] comment in this [1] thread.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217952 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18217762
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#600The Zune (media players) and Windows Phone (upto 8, not even 8.1). The fluid interface with focus on readability and content. The photos app was amazing. Live tiles are amazing. The music player and it's live tile was amazing. The performance was the same whether on a low end budget phone or the top of the line model. So many good ui and ux decisions like the lack of hamburger menus and placement of all menu items al…
I had the Nokia Lumia 920 with Windows Phone 8. That was really where smartphones peaked. I dislike both iOS and Android, they've just tried to migrate the desktop metaphor to the phone and it's not really working.
For me they peaked with the Lumia 925. The swiping keyboard had an accuracy unmatched by anything since, including the Lumia 950 I'm using to type this, which sucks (win 10 mobile rebuilt it for some stupid reason. It was perfect!)
I still think about going back to the 925. Battery life was great, camera was decent, and it was the perfect size for hand and pocket. Only the browser lets it down and that's mostly because modern js sites don't support ie mobile and a lot of stuff breaks