And there is Xanadu, the ultimate hypermedia system. It’s a pity that no one (who could fund them) really understood the concept back then and it became vaporware...
Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
451–460 of 648 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#452Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#453Excluding some of the mentioned ones like Google Reader, ICQ, Winamp etc. All them were at one point in time Champion in their own respective domain. They succeed at the time, so I don't see how it is a failure. They could just be more accurately described as killed or failed to move forward and compete. So far Google Wave, Pepple Smart Watch, XMPP, Unity, WebOS, Zune, Windows Phone. I don't see any of these as "grea…
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#454Canonical Bazaar Microsoft Encarta
> Microsoft Encarta This was replaced by Wikipedia for me, but I really enjoyed reading about stuff without any distraction (read: Internet access at home)
They have been an almost literal life saver for me in 2012-2013.
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#455Ubuntu's Unity desktop. People really hated it because (IMHO) it had a really rocky launch. Ubuntu replaced a very usable GNOME 2.x desktop with an alpha-quality replacement. And Canonical was riding high from having "won" the Linux for desktop game and was pushing their weight around, giving the impression that they were ignoring the feedback from their users. Unity wasn't without its missteps. But it matured quite…
[0] Please see https://unity8.io/ and https://forums.ubports.com/category/36/unity8
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#456Ubuntu's Unity desktop. People really hated it because (IMHO) it had a really rocky launch. Ubuntu replaced a very usable GNOME 2.x desktop with an alpha-quality replacement. And Canonical was riding high from having "won" the Linux for desktop game and was pushing their weight around, giving the impression that they were ignoring the feedback from their users. Unity wasn't without its missteps. But it matured quite…
I miss Unity too. Sometimes I catch myself with feeling to compile Unity8 from src. :)
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#457The Sun Ray was ahead of its time. After Oracle bought and killed it, "the cloud" kicked up and is exactly what the Sun Rays were built for in the first place. Oops!
From the original NCD X-terminal to the current Citrix-based smart terminals there's definitely something compelling about putting the compute elsewhere and displaying graphics locally. Nvidia have to be very worried about Google's Project Stream because of the cloud model: someone aggregating compute and render resources means net selling less than when each person has their own. It also means far less opportunity t…
[0] https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/products/geforce-now/wa...
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#458Excluding some of the mentioned ones like Google Reader, ICQ, Winamp etc. All them were at one point in time Champion in their own respective domain. They succeed at the time, so I don't see how it is a failure. They could just be more accurately described as killed or failed to move forward and compete. So far Google Wave, Pepple Smart Watch, XMPP, Unity, WebOS, Zune, Windows Phone. I don't see any of these as "grea…
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
I own several. I'd trust any gear used by Allan Holdsworth. Not that it will help sound like him! I'm digging the recent explosion of headless guitars, Strandberg et al. I started playing on a Strat-shaped body so anything different throws me off. Even the bridge position on a Les Paul type body spooks me. I guess one of the reasons headless/compact guitars don't go outside of the niche of progressive/fusion circles…
I don't know whether this counts as `cool' or not (David Bowie's Tin Machine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEtOjC0NLFw
Re: Ask HN: Which great products didn't succeed?
#460Excluding some of the mentioned ones like Google Reader, ICQ, Winamp etc. All them were at one point in time Champion in their own respective domain. They succeed at the time, so I don't see how it is a failure. They could just be more accurately described as killed or failed to move forward and compete. So far Google Wave, Pepple Smart Watch, XMPP, Unity, WebOS, Zune, Windows Phone. I don't see any of these as "grea…
With respect to Windows phone, I only heard good things about the UX from users. I heard many complaints about the lack of apps though.