2024's Tech Turkeys Leads with Vision Pro

Apple gets the crown this year, and Elon Musk isn't far off

Tech Turkey created with Google’s Gemini

It’s time once again for the tech turkeys of the year, and 2024 saw so many of them.

Apple, Elon Musk, Sonos and Google top the list, which I’ve been doing yearly as far back, as I can tell, as 2015, when I also gave the top nod to an Apple product that was especially buggy in its initial debut. But let’s begin with 2024 and Apple’s most unwanted product of the year.

Vision Pro

What if you created a virtual reality headset that was indeed a tech marvel, but very few people had an interest in it? That’s the case with the Vision Pro, the augmented reality you need for…..?

Right, it’s marketing without a solution. What Apple told us: Photos and videos look great inside of it (true) and you could work on your Mac with the Vision Pro as a second monitor. But how long could that last? In tests, many people said it was so heavy they couldn’t keep it on for longer than 30 minutes or so. (My question: once you bought it and used it the first week, would you ever actually use it again, and again?)

The inevitable happened. The fanboys and girls snapped up the product in the first weekend and flooded social media with breathless tales of their new product and then—very few followed in their footsteps. By the end of the year, there were reports that Apple had dramatically scaled back production of the unit, and was drafting up a new, lighter and way cheaper version for 2025.

Making matters worse: in the fall, at a Meta developer’s conference, the company showed off a prototype for a similar unit that did many of the same things as the Vision Pro, but housed in traditional glasses frame, that would sell for $500.

Back to the drawing board for our friends in Cupertino.

X = Eech

Elon Musk changed the name of Twitter back in July, 2023, but it wasn’t until 2024 that the former Twitter was transformed into something very different: an ultra-right wing, conspiracy theory filled, propaganda arm for Musk’s POV, with much of what you see there falsehoods and hate. We may not like what’s come of it, but many do: Musk was able to use the platform to help re-elect Donald Trump. Those of who loved the old Twitter aren’t happy with what it’s become, and X has seen an exodus of them. By the end of the year, millions of former fans were denouncing their former Twitter status and moving to Bluesky, a Twitter alternative that looks like the older Tweet home we used to love.

Sonos Blunder

Sonos, the company behind wi-fi speakers that many of us own, released an app update in May that made many customers systems inoperable. That wasn’t the plan, of course, but the app was so poorly designed that Sonos is still digging itself out of a hole. The company laid off 100 staffers, saw a 25% stock dip and lowered earnings projections because of the badly designed app. For consumers, this a good lesson in software updates: never rush to allow the update in until the kinks have been worked out.

Apple Not So Intelligent

It’s one thing to announce a “coming soon” product. But then when it drips that most of these new cool “AI” features won’t be available until much later than expected, it’s a letdown. Apple unveiled “Apple Intelligence” in June at a developer’s conference, promising that new things like the ability to help you write, summarize your e-mails and find photos would be available in the fall. There was an assumption by us, perhaps wrongly, that it would be on the new iPhone 16, but as it turns out, the AI that Apple was selling to market the new phone was initially missing these new features. Many of them won’t even see the light of day until mid-2025. And of the new features that dropped in late October? Meh. I do like the ability to transcribe recordings in Voice Memos. And the iPhone 16 Pro has a great camera. But come on Apple!

Google’s AI Editing Gone Amuck

In August I wrote that Google’s new AP photo editing features could “ruin photography forever.” I wasn’t alone in my assessment. The Verge noted that anyone who buys this phone “will have access to the easiest, breeziest user interface for top-tier lies, built right into their mobile device.”

What are these new features I’m so upset about?

“Add Me,” lets you take a photo of say, the two of you, and add a third person to the image after the fact, while the really controversial one is called “Remagine,” which turns ordinary photos into unlabeled generative AI artwork.

I love photography for the memories: showing what I saw at a given moment, celebrating the beauty of the world by being out there at those “magic” morning and evening times and sharing it with the world, snapping street images of things that I find interesting, capturing emotion and smiling faces at their best.

Sure, we all have Photoshop and remove unwanted objects all the time, open people’s eyes when they’re closed and the like, but that’s different from altering reality at the click of a button and flooding social media with fake, unlabeled photos.

Holiday Photo Tips

Just in time for Thanksgiving, a video just for you, from the archives, chock full of family photo tips for Thanksgiving and beyond.

Thanks as always for taking the time to read, watch and listen, and have a great holiday everyone. I’ll be stocking up on that new computer and accessories. How about you?

Jeff