Overhyped and Undelivered: Top 10 Vaporware Letdowns of 2009

Posted 12/03/2009 at 2:45pm | by Alex Castle, Norman Chan and Will Smith

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We've seen some pretty incredible products released in 2009, from the iPhone 3Gs and blistering-fast videocards to the timely release of Windows 7. Unfortunately, there have also been a number of exciting technologies that didn't make it out this year, despite widespread hype and high expectations. We've taken it upon ourselves to call out the worst offenders. Read on for our list of the ten most notable technologies that got prematurely announced, delayed, or outright cancelled in 2009.

First, let's get the obvious one out of the way.

10. Crunchpad

The brainchild of TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, the Crunchpad has been the source of will-it-or-won’t-it release speculation since the project was announced in mid-2008.

Whether there was a demand or not for the Crunchpad, a tablet device meant for surfing the web from the couch, was always up in the air. With sub-netbook internals and likely to cost more than $300, some questioned whether anyone would find the Crunchpad worth their cash. Others wondered if a full-size device without a keyboard could survive in the modern world of social web-apps.

But now, there’s no more speculation about the Crunchpad, except of the “what the hell just happened” variety. On November 30th, just two weeks after insisting that the project was alive and well, Arrington announced that the CrunchPad had exploded on the launchpad. According to him, Fusion Garage, TechCrunch’s partner in the endeavor, essentially decided to claim the product as their own. He says:

“Bizarrely, we were being notified that we were no longer involved with the project. Our project. Chandra said that based on pressure from his shareholders he had decided to move forward and sell the device directly through Fusion Garage, without our involvement.

"Err, what? This is the equivalent of Foxconn, who build the iPhone, notifying Apple a couple of days before launch that they’d be moving ahead and selling the iPhone directly without any involvement from Apple.”

Of course, a screwjob of these epic proportions will necessarily result in a lengthy legal battle, and the CrunchPad will never see the light of day. Arrington said it best himself:

“I’m enraged, embarrassed, and just…sad. The CrunchPad is now in the DeadPool.”

2010 forecast: No chance.

9. WiMAX

Ah, WiMAX, the perennially-promised wide-range wireless broadband. Theoretically able to power 6Mbps downloads to mobile devices and Wi-fi hotspots anywhere within its coverage area, WiMAX has been trumpeted as the Next Big Thing in wireless for years.

So where is it? Well, it’s coming along, one city at a time. It’s still far from a wide-spread rollout, though, which means for most people WiMAX is out of reach. Sprint’s still dumping billions of dollars into the project though, and the list of cities on the docket for 2010 is promising (hooray San Francisco!). So even though this one is still vaporware for now, we’ve got high hopes for the future.

2010 forecast: Decent, if you live in a major metropolitan area.

8. OnLive

PC gaming is dead! And console gaming? Also dead! 

That's the kind of hyperbole that was buzzing around the internet when OnLive was announced early this year at the Game Developer's Conference. Its idea of cloud gaming wasn't just conceptual; OnLive had playable demos on the show floor, and promised a beta by the summer. Summer came and went, and it wasn't until September that OnLive began taking sign-ups for a closed beta. 

But now, at the end of 2009, we haven't heard anything new from the company. OnLive's success will depend largely on the location of its data centers and the continued expansion of broadband services, so it's not unreasonble that they still have a ways to go before being ready for primetime. AT&T and Warner Bros. have contributed a significant amount of investment into the service, so we don't think it'll go away, either. But until we actually get to play with OnLive outside of a controlled environment, color us skeptical that PC and console gaming will go the way of the Dodo.

2010 forecast: There are a lot of reputations on the line (as well as money), so we don’t see OnLive going public until it’s bug-free and polished. We’re hoping for a public beta by summer.

6. Consumer electric cars

It’s almost 2010 already, and transportation technology just isn’t where we thought it was going to be by now. Jetpacks? Nope. Flying cars? No way. Hoverboards? Nuh-uh. Electric cars? Not yet.

Now, we’ll admit that those first three are a little unreasonable. All things considered, The Jetsons simply turned out to be a poor predictor of what life here in the future would be like. But really, where are the electric cars? There’s the Chevy Volt, which looks fairly promising, but which won’t hit your local dealership until late 2010 at the very earliest. There’s also the Tesla Roadster, of course, which kicks all kinds of ass and has actually been shipping cars (at least 700 so far!). But, with a 6-figure pricetag, it’s way out of reach of most of us peons.

At least there’s hope that practical electric cars aren’t too far off. Check out Shai Agassi’s TED talk for one example of how an all-electric future might look.

2010 forecast: Not too bad. The Volt is schedule to launch in late 2010, but given the car’s history of delays, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it get pushed into 2011.