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Tech fails are one of the most dreaded things by any major tech corporation coming into 2024. Be it the launch trailer or the product itself, any miscalculation on the part of a company can completely derail their project. A failure on their part may even negatively campaign against the product and the company as well and result in severe consequences.
The stakes are inc͏redibly high in today's ͏hyper-connected world, where news of a tech͏ failure can go viral within minutes, reaching millions of potential customers and investors. Socia͏l media further emphasizes the impact of negative feedback and failure, creating a ripple effect that can be difficult ͏to control.͏ That's why it is so important to get everything right without fail when launching a product.
This article will list the most embarrassing tech fails of 2024, including some big names like Apple. It will dive deep into each tech fail, providing context and exploring the repercussions that followed.
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Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer's opinions.
Apple Vision Pro and four other massive tech fails in 2024 so far
5) Apple Vision Pro
The Apple Vision Pro was the most anticipated tech launch of 2024. It was the product that would mark Apple's entry into the Virtual Reality segment. It promised exciting and unbelievably advanced features. In fact, the Vision Pro nailed most of the fundamental features of a VR headset (like AR Facetime and controlling everything using finger gestures, latency, etc) better than any other company in the market.
So why is it included in the fails list? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Firstly, the third-party app situation for media consumption feels unfinished. There is no Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Prime, or any other web streaming app except Apple TV, Disney+, etc. You can still use the browser to access these apps but it is not the same as Apple TV.
Unlike Apple TV, which can be displayed like a movie screen and controlled and interacted with from any angle, web streaming through the browser is limited and a less immersive experience. You also cannot download any content to watch when traveling.
Secondly, it is not a great device for work. You can mirror your MacBook's screen but you cannot interact with it. In this mode, it is just a screen mirrored to your Vision Pro's screen so you cannot use finger gestures to control it. Keyboard and mouse inputs are the only options, and even this becomes challenging because the screen doesn't filter out your keyboard or the mouse for you to work properly.
So that negates the two fundamental things people would use the Apple Vision for, already setting it up for failure. This brings us to the next point—the price. The Apple Vision Pro retails for $3499, which means that you will be paying a premium amount but will have to put up with limited functionality. As you can imagine, this was not well received by most people, so you'll likely be met with judging stares whenever you use it in public.
If the thought of public judgment and the unavailability of the mentioned features doesn't bother you, then yes, it is one of the best devices you can get. But for most people (including us) all these things land the Apple Vision Pro in the list of 20204's tech fails. However, you can still hold out hope that future updates will iron out the issues and take it off the fails list.
4) Rabbit R1
The Rabbit R1 is an AI-power͏ed handheld de͏vi͏ce desi͏gne͏d to ͏si͏mplify digital tasks and serve as a personal ͏AI͏ c͏ompanion. It comes in a plastic outer shell with a TFT display and features a built-in AI that can answer questions you ask. It can use its camera to take in visual cues when you ask questions about an object while pointing the R1 at the object.
It is a good concept but suffers from all the shortcomings of AI right now. For example, it is extremely inaccurate when taking visual cues and answering your questions, often getting them wrong.
The screen on the Rabbit R1 is a touchscreen display. In the landscape mode, it allows users to type in a question using the keyboard for the Artificial Intelligence to answer. But it is limited to just that. To navigate the settings, you need to use the scroll wheel that comes with the R1 since the company didn't provide touchscreen functionality for scrolling.
The Rabbit R1 is based on the LAM model which is designed to understand what you are saying and execute those tasks based on the command you provided. That means it can be used to order food, play a song, book an Uber, and more, but this doesn't always work the way it should. It often gets orders wrong and doesn't properly execute commands.
The Rabbit R1 retails for $199. It feels like a half-baked product that promises a lot of great features but doesn't deliver. It is almost as though the company released a beta product just for marketing purposes. All these reasons make the Rabbit R1 one of the worst tech fails of 2024.
3) Fisker Ocean
Fisker is an American company that released a car called the Ocean. It is an Electric SUV that was launched promising a lot of innovative features. The car generated massive hype and excitement for its sleek design and unique offerings like a solar roof. However, things started going downhill when Marques Brownlee, a popular American tech YouTuber, reviewed the car.
Marques asked Fisker for the car to review it, and Fisker allegedly repeatedly tried to postpone sending the car for review. Naturally, Marques went and found a dealer for that car and then used that car to make his review. When Fisker found this out, they contacted Marques to ask him to wait until they pushed out a software update.
However, Marques didn't wait for the software update. The car was already released for sale in the market, so there was no reason for Marques to postpone his review, and it ended exactly as you may have guessed. He claimed that Fisker's Ocean was the "worst car he ever reviewed" releasing a video of the same.
The car had severe problems, software issues, and glitches. The video brought in massive negative publicity for the car and the company. Upon seeing all these negative reviews, the company tried to control the damage by allegedly trying to contact Marques directly after obtaining his personal contact and address. This is a massive breach of privacy.
All this negative publicity has shattered the company's image and they came close to bankruptcy. Their CEO doubts if they can even survive until the end of the year. Fisker started to massively cut prices, almost 39%, to promote Ocean's sales and keep the company alive.
4) Apple's 2024 iPad Pro commercial
Apple released its M4 iPad Pro in May 2024 but the video they used to introduce the iPad created controversy and hurt the sentiments of many artists around the world.
The video showed various artistic tools like a guitar, paints, a piano, and many other objects being crushed by a hydraulic press that destroyed everything only to reveal the iPad Pro as the finished product when the press was retracted. Apple was trying to convey how their new iPad was so capable that it could replace all other tools by combining them into this one device.
However, many people took away a different message. Artists and creators all around the world felt that Apple was trying to crush their intricate tools and suck the humanity out of them. This raised so much backlash that Apple had to come out and publicly apologize to all the artists and creators for their iPad Pro commercial.
Samsung took this opportunity to release its own video showcasing its S9 tablet, which was aimed as a direct counter to Apple's video. It showed an artist picking up a broken guitar to compose a song with the tagline "Creativity cannot be crushed". It was one of the smartest marketing moves by Samsung and one of the worst marketing moves by Apple, making this one of the worst tech fails of 2024.
5) Humane's AI Pin
The Humane AI pin was another very hyped-up product like the Apple Vision Pro. It is a device designed to attach like a pin and act as your personal AI assistant. It aims to replace your smartphone, which is full of distractions, with a minimalistic device that serves all your basic needs. The concept was very interesting, but the execution was lackluster.
When famous tech YouTubers reviewed the product, they ran into similar problems. The AI promises to be a personal companion but fails to deliver. It is slow in responding and processing, and a continuous conversation with it is close to impossible. In fact, it would be faster to take out your smartphone and type your query into your browser.
The AI is equally bad on the device. It often responds confidently with wrong answers to your questions and it occasionally even fails to understand you. Apart from this, the pin requires a continuous internet connection to function properly.
The Humane AI pin is listed on their website for $799, which is quite a hefty price to pay for a device with such limited functionalities. However, on top of the hefty price, you need to buy another $24 monthly subscription for your AI pin to work. It seems like the company is trying to squeeze every bit of money out of the consumer without providing actual benefits.
The service for which Humane charges $24 a month is extremely glitchy and comes with lots of software bugs. All these things make this AI pin the worst possible fail on this list in 2024.
