the Xtranormal website where you could script cartoon movies of anything for free.
I clicked through to say Xtranormal. Here's one of my all time favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc64xWxRsag
Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
171–180 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#172Cuecat::
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#173The Acura Integra (or anything like it 3-door hatchbacks are all mostly gone). TV's with more than 3 HDMI inputs.
huh ? There are loads of 3 door hatchbacks.
scirrocco, fiesta, focus, astra, golf, fiat 500.
Thats off the top of my head.
Personally I'd much prefer 5 door.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#174The internet before the ghetto could afford smart phones.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#175Grooveshark had a better interface for managing "currently playing" than anything I've used before or since. Most apps don't even track what's currently playing in an intelligent fashion. Similarly, rockbox was really great mp3 player firmware, when I used to use one of those. It had a funny feature I've never seen elsewhere: multi-lingual article-ignoring sort. I had German band "Die Prinzen" on that mp3 player, and…
Rockbox's latest release was in May 2017 with a ton of changes and features added and the last change in their git repo was from today (Oct 15) with additional commits over the past few weeks, so not totally dead. However since music players as a whole are practically out, I don't know how much good that'll do you. If you don't mind me asking, I'd be curious about your setup, I'm considering installing it on an old S…
Mine was definitely one the 200 series SanDisks! I can't say for certain which device I used. I got the device from my roommate, who got it in a woot.com "bag of crap" that included a couple refurbed mp3 players.
I remember the default firmware being extremely slow to use. It spent cpu time it couldn't afford to render animations between "apps" that added nothing. I think it may have been extensor picky about which codecs it supported, though I wouldn't have had much that wasn't mp3s.
I really loved rockbox. I liked how configurable it was, and how minimal it was. I'd previously used sdd based mp3 players. A dell dj (I was crushed when they canceled that line, and more so when the Seagate hard drive failed) and the first gen video ipod.
Rockbox worked very well for music, which is all I used it for. I always used windows explorer to transfer files to /from, and that worked well.
I found installing rockbox very easy. More so than installing ddwrt or homebrew on a wii. I don't think I ever updated rockbox. I probably used it for a year and a half, max.
I only stopped using it when I got a smart phone. I would certainly still be using it today.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#176Ensemble 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 a similar vein, i wish a remake of Knights and Merchants were available and good.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#177Macbook pros when they had a good keyboard!
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#178Aces Studio/Microsoft Aces, responsible for the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, shutdown by MS in 2009.
Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#179Re: Ask HN: What discontinued company/product do you wish was still around?
#180The 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 along the bottom of the screen with the extra items being hidden away in a drop-down using ellipsis. System wide light and dark themes jazzed up using an accent color that all of your apps respected.
The People hub (contacts app) was the central point for all social media. Facebook and Twitter were integrated. I didn't need fb messenger. Skype and fb messenger were integrated with the messaging app.
Damn, I wish we made it.