Keep Dreaming: 13 Technologies You Won’t See in 2013
Dec 26, 2012 09:18 PM EDT by It seems like only yesterday we were planning for the Mayan apocalypse, but like so many other products, the 14th b’ak’tun (next era) has been delayed due to bugs and lack of pre-orders. Yet if you talked to some pundits back in 2011, they’d have told you that the end of days was coming out in Q4 of 2012, along with its competitor, BlackBerry 10.
No doubt, in 2013, several long-rumored products will come to market. However, next year won’t be the year for these 13 gadgets and technologies.
Amazon Smartphone
The Speculation: After its success selling Amazon-branded Android tablets, the company will launch a smartphone that puts its content front and center and encouraging you to shop wherever you go. Some have even suggested that the company will make it easy to scan prices when you're in a retail store, just so you can see if Amazon sells the item cheaper. Taiwan Economic News recently reported that Foxconn will be manufacturing the handset, which will launch in Q3 or 2013 for $100 to $200.
Why It Won't Happen in 2013: Breaking into the U.S. smartphone market with any hope of success is extremely difficult for new players. The four major carriers rule their networks with an iron fist, either forcing phone vendors to go along with their software strategies or outright rejecting products that don't meet their immediate business goals. Just ask Google, which decided to release the Nexus 4 as an unlocked device rather than deal with AT&T and Verizon. (A subsidized version is available for T-Mobile.)
From a business perspective, playing in the smartphone space makes little sense for Amazon as the company's goal is not to sell phones but to sell media and dry goods through its online store. The company already has its shopping app preloaded as crapware on many Android devices, and the company could leverage these placements in 2013 by finally bringing Amazon instant video to Android devices and adding a price scanning app to the mix. Why spend money building and supporting a smartphone when you can just get users of other phones to buy the all the same products from you?
More: Top 10 Smartphones
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December 26th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Regarding Windows Blue – Microsoft has not denied the reports.
>So, for Windows Blue to launch even as late as Q4 of 2013, Microsoft would have to announce a developer preview or public beta at the
>beginning of the year.
They won’t be playing around with that this time around. Blue is coming as either an update or a massive service pack. Think of it this way: Microsoft is in a mad dash to converge Windows Phone, Windows Desktop, Windows RT and to some degree X-Box. To put it a more cynical way: they know their only hope in mobile is to leverage their existing monopoly (desktop) to create another (mobile), which has been the singular business tool MS has employed since the days of DOS. The OSes will be interlinked. To have a mobile phone/tablet OS that only updates once every three years is certain suicide. Windows Phone will need yearly updates and this will mandate Windows Desktop updates too.
There won’t be the giant 3+year roll-outs anymore. Think Apple and its more incremental yearly updates. This will be the new Microsoft approach. Whether it’s called a new version of the OS, a service pack, a “.5″ release, etc. is to be determined, but it is coming and there’s no way MS can finish integrating its product line without this release schedule change. Further point: Sinofsky, the Windows architect, infamous for wanting complete control of his division and anything that touched Windows, was canned a few weeks after Win8 shipped. All the reports said that his need for control was not going to work when the MS strategy was going to be to integrate the desktop, mobile and game divisions. If the next step in integrating is worth firing the man who was once talked about as the next Microsoft CEO, yearly Windows updates are hardly a major change in comparison.
December 30th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
Laptop Magazine BLOOOOOOWS
January 1st, 2013 at 9:30 pm
Please stop the slide shows. All of this could easily fit on one scrollable screen. Are you counting clicks for advertisers? This is getting annoying.
April 16th, 2013 at 8:59 am
HTC First, with Facebook Home. Get owned.
May 23rd, 2013 at 12:59 pm
Out of interest, were any of these actually “technologies”?
Or do we not know how to say “product” any more because ‘technology’ gets better SEO?