A bongo enthusiast once said, "time is a flat circle," which is a pretentious way of saying history repeats itself. And nowhere is that more apparent than the tech industry. Every year, hopeful entrepreneurs with a twinkle in their eyes introduce the next app, gadget, or concept that will change the world and free us from the tyranny of talking to other humans, looking something up, or making our own dinners.
But not every idea is a winner. And not every winning idea will last forever. For every Silicon Valley darling currently basking in the glory of a Job Well Done, another is winding down, shutting off the lights, and penning a sad Medium post about their company's demise. Do not weep for them; they will surely return with another big idea. But for now, let us reflect on the tech we lost in 2018.
Editor's Note: This story was updated on Dec. 16 with a few more things that bit the dust in early December.
Nintendo's Miitomo Social Network
Nintendo's first foray into mobile apps was a social network called Miitomo, which launched in March 2016 alongside the My Nintendo loyalty program. It allowed friends to converse on iOS and Android by answering questions and sharing responses through Twitter and Facebook integration. But it could only be used when connected to Nintendo's servers, and on May 9, Nintendo shut those servers down.
Spotify Running
In 2015, the music-streaming service launched Spotify Running, which served up content based on your tempo and listening history. In February, Spotify said it was "retiring" the Running feature ahead of an April revamp of its mobile app.
Apple Music Connect
Social networking has never really been Apple's strong suit. Cupertino has largely confined its social efforts to its music products, first with Ping inside iTunes and more recently with Connect inside Apple Music. Ping said farewell in 2012, and six years later, it's Connect's time to bid adieu. As 9to5Mac reports, Apple will no longer let artists post on Connect, while Connect content is being pulled from the Music app's For You section.
Kuvee Smart Bottle
Can't polish off a bottle of wine in one sitting? The $199 Kuvee Smart Bottle was intended to help you keep wine fresh for up to 30 days via a valve system built into the canteens that prevented oxygen from touching the liquid. A small Wi-Fi touch screen on the front of the bottle, meanwhile, offered serving tips and food pairings, and info about the number of glasses remaining in each carafe. But this "Keurig for wine" ran out of money and announced plans to shut down earlier this year.
Lytro
The Lytro Light Field Camera, designed to capture images that you can focus after they've been shot, hit the scene in 2012 and earned a "fair" rating in PCMag's review that year. The company's follow-up Illum camera (pictured) also underwhelmed. Consumers apparently agreed, and in 2015, Lytro shifted its focus to virtual reality with Immerge, a camera rig targeted at big-time production studios with deep pockets. That didn't do the trick either, though; earlier this year, Lytro announced it was shutting down.
Google URL Shortener
Google loves to shut things down, and on the chopping block this year was its link-shortening service, goo.gl, which dates back to 2009. "Since then, many popular URL shortening services have emerged and the ways people find content on the Internet have also changed dramatically," Google said in March. It announced plans to replace the Google URL Shortener with Firebase Dynamic Links, which are "smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app."
Google Goggles
Google Goggles also dates back to 2009, and served as an early version of Google Lens. Point your phone at an object, snap a photo, and Goggles will give you more information about what you're looking at. By 2014, Google acquired Quest Visual, the developer behind the impressive Word Lens app. In June, Google unveiled the standalone Lens app, making Goggles a bit redundant. By August, the Goggles app was directing users to Lens.
Google Allo
To help show off the power of the Google Assistant, Google in 2016 released Allo, an AI-powered chat app. When PCMag reviewed Allo last year, we found it to be a beautifully designed app that was an enjoyable experience for chatting with friends and sharing media. But we were skeptical that it could beat the chat app competition. Google apparently agrees. In a December blog post, Google said it's now focusing on its messaging app Messages as well as "working closely with the mobile industry to upgrade SMS." The end goal is to do away with SMS and replace it with Rich Communications Services (RCS). For RCS to shine, Allo must die. RIP.
Google+
This one was surprising, but also not. In October, Google announced that it would shut down the consumer version of Google+ over the next 10 months, following the discovery of a bug that it opted to keep secret. The search giant framed the decision as one that makes sense given that very few people actively use Google+, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the move came after Google discovered a bug that left private user information open to developers in March, but declined to alert users for fear of regulatory scrutiny.
More recently, the discovery of a new bug prompted Google to announce it will shut down the consumer version of Google+ in April 2019, four months earlier than originally planned, and get rid of all Google+ APIs within the next 90 days.
Google Inbox
While few consumers shed tears over the demise of Goggles or Google+, Google Inbox was another story. In a move reminiscent of the much-maligned shutdown of Google Reader, the company said it would shutter Inbox in March 2019 "to focus solely on Gmail."
The app, which groups similar types of mail together into Bundles and offers a handy snooze feature that lets you postpone emails to a future date, earned an "excellent" rating in PCMag's review. But the new Gmail, which rolled out in April, incorporates many of the features Google first debuted in Inbox, like Smart Reply and Nudges, plus newer ones like Smart Compose, so Inbox had to go.
Digg Reader
Speaking of Google Reader, when that popular service closed up shop in 2013, one alternative people turned to was Digg Reader. But in March, that too went to the great RSS reader in the sky. Digg didn't provide much of an explanation ("Bummer, we know," it wrote), but the service fell out of fashion amidst the rise of Twitter and Facebook and never quite recovered.
Backpage
In April, the FBI seized classified advertisement website Backpage, a year after the site shuttered its adult section over a US Senate report that accused it of facilitating online sex trafficking. Still, the 93-count indictment claims that Backpage enabled child trafficking and earned more than $500 million in prostitution-related revenue since its launch in 2004.
Tor Messenger
In 2015, Tor released a beta version of its cross-platform chat program, which let you chat securely on familiar messaging services, like Jabber, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Twitter, and Yahoo. Three years later, however, Tor announced plans to sunset the app. The problem was threefold: Tor Messenger was based on Instantbird, which was no longer maintained by its developers; it was difficult to control metadata leaks; and Tor did not have enough internal resources to keep it going.
Oppo Digital
Have you jettisoned your DVD collection for video-streaming services? You're not alone, and that means fewer people buying DVD and Blu-ray players. As such, Oppo Digital in April announced plans to "gradually stop manufacturing new products." The company will still offer technical support, repair service, and firmware updates for its Blu-ray players, DVD players, personal and wireless audio devices for the time being. But don't expect any new products. "From now on, Oppo Digital will focus our main effort on organizing and ensuring long term support for the existing generation of products. As such, we will not have the resources to develop and release new generations of products," the company says.
Vine (Again)
Vine was effectively shut down in 2016 by its parent Twitter, which struggled to generate substantial revenue from the platform, despite its early popularity. In December 2017, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teased that he was building a new iteration of Vine, simply called "V2." But Hofmann dashed the hopes of Vine fans in May when he explained that "financial and legal" hurdles were preventing the project from getting off the ground. He is, however, expected to launch an all-new looping video app called Byte in spring 2019.
Klout
There are many signals of internet popularity, from blue checkmarks to follower counts. But for a brief period, people who were Very Online were also concerned with their Klout scores. As we outlined in our 2011 review, Klout analyzed data from your social feeds and rated you from 1 to 100 on your "overall online influence." As your score got higher, Klout would send you Klout Perks, which ranged from a free Subway sandwich to access to airline lounges. Over the years, Klout's, well, clout waned; Perks disappeared in 2015, and in May of this year, Klout announced it would shut down the Klout website and Klout Scores.
StumbleUpon
Another internet star of the 2000s, StumbleUpon was in the discovery game before Facebook and Twitter cornered that market. Founded in November 2001, StumbleUpon offered a simple way to discover sites on the web: create an account, input some information about yourself, and hit the "stumble" button to see a random webpage that matched your interests. But the growth of the mobile web and social media made StumbleUpon a bit of an afterthought in recent years. In May, Co-Founder Garrett Camp said StumbleUpon would shut down. StumbleUpon accounts were moved to Mix.com, a content discovery platform Camp founded in 2015.
Path
Launched in 2010, Path was designed to help you keep tabs on just your closest friends. It was often used as a personal journal or another way to publicly share updates with your inner circle. After some high-profile privacy snafus, Path was acquired in 2015 by South Korean internet company Daum Kakao, maker of KakaoTalk, for an undisclosed sum. On Nov. 15, it shut down "to prioritize our work to serve you with better products and services."
Canon Film Cameras
While old-school instant cameras have made a bit of a comeback in recent years, digital cameras are the way to go for most photography buffs these days. As such, film cameras are harder to find, and in 2018, Canon made it even more difficult. As PetaPixel reported in May, Canon discontinued the EOS-1V, its last film camera. The company actually stopped making the camera in 2010, but had enough in its inventory to ship and sell them until this year. For more, check out 10 Cool Classic Film Cameras, including the Canon AE-1 (pictured above).
Cambridge Analytica
Facebook had a rough year, and one big reason for that was Cambridge Analytica. The UK-based consulting firm was banned from Facebook in March for improperly accessing Facebook user data. A researcher, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, developed a personality test app called thisisyourdigitallife, and was supposed to use the data collected from the app for research purposes. Instead, he provided it to Cambridge Analytica, which used it to help Republican candidates for US office target potential voters online. Facebook found out about it in 2015 and ordered Cambridge Analytica to destroy the data. They said they would, but guess what? They didn't. That exploded into a big scandal earlier this year, and the blowback resulted in Cambridge Analytica shutting down.
Best Buy Mobile Stores
Amazon Prime now has more than 100 million users; for $119 per year, shoppers can buy just about anything at all hours of the day and have it shipped to them in two days or less. For many, it's a much more efficient process than roaming the aisles of a big box store (package theft notwithstanding). But it doesn't help brick-and-mortar stores stay open. In March, Best Buy Chief Executive Hubert Joly announced the company would close all 250 of its mobile stores on May 31. The stores focused on mobile products and had a much smaller footprint than other Best Buys.
The move came ahead of another farewell for Best Buy: As of July 1, music CDs are no longer be offered for sale at any of Best Buy's outlets amidst declining demand. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
1TB of Free Flickr Storage
In 2013, then-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer hosted a big New York City press event to unveil a revamped version of the Flickr photo-sharing site, a new Android app, and announce that every Flickr user would get 1TB of free storage. Five years later, Mayer is gone, Flickr has been acquired by SmugMug, and that 1TB of storage is kaput, replaced with 1,000 photos or videos. On Feb. 5, SmugMug will start deleting images and videos until your free account is back down to 1,000 assets.
Yahoo Messenger
With office messaging largely relegated to team-messaging apps like Slack these days, and personal messages fired off on mobile phones, Yahoo Messenger was not long for this world. On July 17, the chat service sent its final message. Yahoo said it's now "focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs."
Hipchat and Stride Apps
Speaking of Slack, the company in July announced a partnership with Atlassian to buy the intellectual property for its Hipchat and Stride apps and discontinue them. Stride is no longer accepting any new teams. Existing groups can continue to add users and use Stride and Hipchat Cloud products until February 15, 2019. Atlassian's 2,600-plus employees now use Slack. Still, PCMag's Business Editor Oliver Rist is not convinced Slack has won the office chat war.
Amazon Mayday Live Video Support
Amazon's 2013 Kindle Fire tablet lineup added "Mayday" live tech support to its higher-end models. You could see the adviser on the screen, but they couldn't see you. They'd listen to your problem and (hopefully) help you solve it. As of June 2018, however, the service is no more.
Amazon Kindle Voyage
In August, TechCrunch noticed the Kindle Voyage was out of stock on Amazon. The company confirmed the device was no longer available, but would say only that "that customer response to Kindle Voyage has been incredibly positive and we've sold out." In our Voyage review, we found it to be "one of the nicest best ebook readers available, though most people will still be served just fine by the Kindle Paperwhite." Amazon has since launched a newer, waterproof Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.
Amazon CreateSpace
If you're looking to self-publish a book, tools like Amazon CreateSpace were popular options (ExtremeTech EIC Jamie Lendino used it for his book on Atari.) In August, however, Amazon said CreateSpace would close up shop and be folded into Kindle Direct Publishing. "By focusing our energies on one site, we're able to innovate faster," according to Amazon. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
Kuri
The adorable Kuri robot by Mayfield Robotics caught our eye at CES 2017. It was pitched as a personal assistant robot you could relate to and would feel comfortable having in your home every day. We had high hopes for Kuri, but cute doesn't pay the bills, and Mayfield announced in July that it would "pause operations" and stop producing Kuri.
Uber Otto Truck Self-Driving
In the wake of a fatal crash in which an Uber autonomous car hit and killed an Arizona woman, Uber decided to put the brakes on development of its autonomous commercial trucks. Uber's self-driving truck effort began in 2016 when the company bought Otto, a startup that was co-founded by former Google employee Anthony Levandowski. The technology was advanced enough to self-drive a truck 120 miles on a highway to deliver a shipment of Budweiser beer, but Levandowski also got Uber embroiled in a contentious legal battle with Alphabet's Waymo.
Musical.ly
In August, China's Bytedance, which acquired Musical.ly late last year for almost $1 billion, merged the popular lip-sync app with a similar service called TikTok.
GameFly Cloud Gaming
GameFly ended its cloud gaming service in late August. Dating back to 2015 as a kind of Netflix for video gaming, it worked over smart TVs from Samsung and LG, in addition to Amazon's Fire TV devices, and let you play select video game titles without the need to buy expensive hardware. The shutdown came after Electronic Arts bought the cloud gaming technology assets and personnel of a GameFly subsidiary based in Israel. However, EA told PCMag "The streaming service was not included in the acquisition agreement. GameFly's decision to exit the cloud streaming sector was made independent of EA."
Facebook Friend List Feeds
Years ago, Facebook started letting you create groups of friends so you could notify a select few about certain things. It also let you view your News Feed with only posts from people in those select groups. Click for a feed of updates from high school friends and then click over to see only updates from family, for example. You can still create those lists, in order to limit who sees your posts. But earlier this year, Facebook said it would shut down the option to view Friend Lists Feeds.
Microsoft Surface Plus Program
Last year, Microsoft unveiled its Surface Plus program, which let customers pay for Surface devices in installments and upgrade after 18 months. The program, however, didn't even make it to that 18-month mark, halting new enrollments in August.
Plex Cloud
Plex Cloud, which debuted in 2016, eliminated the need to run your own local Plex media server and manage an always-on computer or network attached storage device (NAS). Customers could stream anything stored in an Amazon Drive account to a Plex client connected to your TV. But "challenges with performance, quality, and overall user experience" prompting Plex to disable server creation for new Plex Cloud users in February. Plex Cloud shut down for good on Nov. 30.
Apple iPhone SE
In with the new and out with the old. With the introduction of the new iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max in September, Apple quietly ditched its smallest smartphone, the iPhone SE. In our review, we found it to be "the best choice if you're looking for a small, but powerful smartphone."
YouTube Gaming App
In September, YouTube launched a new gaming hub, where you can browse uploaded videos and live streams. At the same time, the company announced plans to discontinue its standalone YouTube Gaming app after three years.
"We have a strong and vibrant audience on the YouTube Gaming app, but the amount of gamers we are able to reach is far bigger on YouTube," YouTube Director of Product Management Christina Chen wrote in a blog post. "That's why, in March 2019, we'll retire the YouTube Gaming app and focus all of our gaming efforts on YouTube where we can reach our entire gaming community."
YouTube Video Annotations
Do you remember those little text boxes that used to pop-up all the time on top of YouTube videos? Google calls them annotations and they are set to disappear completely from YouTube videos on Jan. 15 next year. YouTube actually gave up on annotations back in May 2017, but in January, all existing annotations will be removed from videos.
Minecraft on Apple TV
Minecraft is hard to escape, but it appears the game, from Microsoft-owned Mojang, didn't really find an audience on the Apple TV. In October, Microsoft ended support for Minecraft on Cupertino's set-top box and issued refunds for anyone who had purchased it in the last 90 days.
Drip by Kickstarter
Several years ago, Kickstarter acquired a startup called Drip, designed to help music fans support artists through subscriptions. Last year, Kickstarter relaunched Drip to help more creators get paid. Similar to services like Patreon, Drip was designed for ongoing funding rather than a one-time campaign. As Engadget reported in October, however, Kickstarter has decided to hand over control of Drip to XOXO, a festival for independent artists and creators, in the next year.
Android Nearby Notifications
Less than three years after launching Android Nearby Notifications, Google is killing off the feature. Google Product Manager Ritesh Nayak admitted that Nearby Notifications—intended to surface apps, websites, and services that can be helpful near you—had become too spammy. Instead of trying to fix the feature, Google opted to discontinue it altogether on Dec. 6.
FilmStruck
We're not exactly at a loss for video-streaming services these days, but at least one service, FilmStruck, met its demise this year. The WarnerMedia-owned FilmStruck shut down on Nov. 29, and as The Verge notes, it's the third WarnerMedia streaming service or independent network to get the axe in the wake of the AT&T acquisition after DramaFever and Super Deluxe.
Tronc and Oath
In media circles, it was hard to beat Tronc for terrible conglomerate monikers. But Verizon's Oath got pretty close. Now both are dead; Tronc will once again be known as Tribune Publishing Co, while Oath will become the Verizon Media Group in 2019.
Valve Steam Link
When the Steam Link device first appeared in November 2015, it offered an easy solution for streaming games from a PC to a TV. But three years later, Valve is discontinuing it, so get it while you can.
Nintendo Creators Program
Nintendo's Creators Program let the company take a cut of the profits when people made videos featuring Nintendo content. As IGN notes, however, it wasn't managed particularly well, and Nintendo has decided to end the program by year's end. "We will no longer ask creators to submit their videos to the NCP, and creators can continue showing their passion for Nintendo by following Nintendo’s guidelines," the company said.
Tumblr Porn
Nothing says happy holidays like a porn ban. Tumblr has decided to ban adult content, weeks after the blogging platform was found hosting child pornography. Starting on Dec. 17, Tumblr will begin enforcing the new policy, which will outlaw "adult content"—including photos, videos, and GIFs depicting sex acts—from the site. Blogs that have been flagged as hosting the content will be "reverted to a private setting" viewable only to the owner. For those looking for a new erotic outlet, Pornhub has your back.
IMAX VR Centers
IMAX, which first embraced virtual reality in 2017 and opened seven VR centers, is now set to throw in the towel and close all of them. In Feb. 2017, PCMag checked out the Los Angeles location, and we found the execution to be a bit odd. "It looks far more futuristic in the marketing photos; in person, IMAX VR in LA looks like a home electronics showroom," we found.
Cydia App Store for Jailbroken iPhones
In the years after the launch of the iPhone, "jailbreak" was a key buzzword among those looking to loosen Apple's grip on its app ecosystem. Cupertino was not a fan: in 2009, Apple filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office claiming that the process constituted copyright infringement (a fight it ultimately lost). Cydia stepped in with an app store that sold apps for jailbroken iPhones. But almost a decade later, jailbreaking is not as popular as it once was, and Cydia founder Jay Freeman acknowledged in a December Reddit post that "this service loses me money and is not something I have any passion to maintain." As a result, Freedman decided to "shut down the ability to buy things in Cydia, effective immediately."