5 occasions Google killed one thing too quickly

Over time, Google has developed a little bit of a popularity for being the Grim Reaper of the massive tech world. Actually, in accordance with the (non-Google-sanctioned) Killed by Google website, the corporate has axed almost 300 merchandise in its quick twenty-seven-year existence as a Silicon Valley innovator.

Some killed Google initiatives, like its ill-fated Nexus Q orb product and its under-baked Stadia video game streaming service, aren’t precisely remembered fondly. Others, nevertheless, are regarded again upon looking back with a way of nostalgia and cherishment for the previous.

Listed below are 5 Google-funded services that, in my private opinion, did not deserve their premature destiny.

Chromecast line

Easy plug-and-play pleasure from the times of yore

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Google

Launched to market: 2013
Killed by Google: 2024

For a number of years, Google launched a line of small dongle-like Chromecast equipment that introduced wi-fi casting to old style non-smart tv units. Utilizing the still-supported Google Forged protocol, these gadgets had been excellent for beaming pictures and video content material, mirroring a cellphone or desktop, or just displaying a curated rotation of screensaver photos on any TV display screen.

After three successive generations of Chromecast fashions, along with an Extremely variant, an Audio variant, and a separate unit outfitted with the Google TV working system and a devoted distant management, Google retired the dongle-esque streaming line in favor of a extra conventional set-top field setup referred to as the Google TV Streamer (4K). Whereas this new mannequin is way extra superior than earlier Chromecasts, it is also costlier, much less space-conscious, and fewer easy and intuitive than its ancestral merchandise.

Google+

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Google

Launched to market: 2011
Killed by Google: 2019

Within the earlier days of internet-based social media, tech corporations had been scrambling to emulate the large (and seemingly in a single day) success of Fb. Google, naturally, needed a slice of the social pie, and so it rapidly got here up with a platform often called Google+.

Admittedly, Google+ was a novel tackle social media that did not copy and paste each final design que from its rivals. The platform’s signature Circles characteristic was genuinely modern, permitting customers to create bespoke teams of mates to share curated content material with. Regardless of Google+ deeply integrating with different Google providers like YouTube and Hangouts, the social media web site finally by no means caught the touchdown.

Google Discuss

The unique Google-powered IM consumer

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Google

Launched to market: 2005
Killed by Google: 2013

Google has a tumultuous historical past on the subject of creating, selling, sustaining, and killing numerous internet-based prompt messaging (IM) providers. Earlier than the times of Hangouts, Areas, Allo, YouTube Messages, and RCS Chat, we had the notorious Google Discuss. Referred to by its customers on the time as Gchat, Gtalk, and different colloquial phrases, Google Discuss was cross-platform and out there throughout Android, Home windows, BlackBerry, ChromeOS, and the net through its Gmail integration.

Google Discuss introduced with it encryption, offline messaging, searchable chat logs, fundamental textual content formatting, and different prompt messaging goodies, however it sadly did not survive lengthy sufficient to succeed in the fashionable period of digital textual content messaging. Had Google doubled-down on Gtalk, maybe it could’ve developed into the iMessage of the Android world. Alas, this was to not be, and as an alternative we bore witness to a decade or extra of Google struggling to set its messaging recreation straight.

Nexus line

Inexpensive, geek-friendly, and developer-oriented

Launched to market: 2010
Killed by Google: 2016

Earlier than Google began releasing its personal in-house {hardware} within the type of Pixel-branded smartphones, tablets, and laptops, the corporate ran its now-iconic Nexus program. Annually, Google would work carefully with a number of of its {hardware} OEM companions to tweak an present Android gadget, imbue it with a ‘inventory’ Android Open Source Project (AOSP) construct of the Android working system, and promote it direct to customers at a (comparatively) inexpensive worth level.

Many, together with myself, have fond reminiscences related to Google Nexus-branded merchandise. Specifically, the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 7 are remembered as quintessential 2010’s-era Android gadgets, with their pragmatic exterior designs, their clear, developer-friendly software program, and their aggressively aggressive worth tags.

Google Desktop

A unusual however lovable Google launcher for Home windows

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Google

Launched to market: 2008
Killed by Google: 2011

Google Desktop was a Home windows program that served as a type of launcher for accessing all issues Google on PC. Launched earlier than the arrival of ChromeOS and Chromebook laptops, Google Desktop was the de facto device for looking by way of your Gmail inbox, regionally saved laptop information, chat logs, internet historical past, and extra immediately out of your desktop. Not like the Google Toolbar internet browser plug-in, which was built-in into Web Explorer’s interface, Google Desktop hooked immediately into Home windows Vista and Home windows 7 through a system tray applet.

Google Desktop provided its personal Sidebar for pinning and accessing widgets, it provided a Fast Discover field that resembles modern-day Highlight Search on macOS, amongst different perks. Ultimately, a confluence of ChromeOS availability, an elevated prominence of cloud-based storage, and publicized privateness and safety vulnerabilities throughout the program led to its premature demise after solely three years available on the market.

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