Smartphone Trends That Didn’t Last

Some smartphone trends didn’t last very long as the iPhone and Android led the way into the future.

Smartphones are everywhere these days. If you have a reasonable income, you probably have at least an Android based phone. A lot of innovations have come and gone in the mobile market, and we are here to introduce some of the ideas that didn’t go over so well.

• Windows – When Microsoft tried their hand at early smartphone operating systems, it was a huge mess. They’ve gotten better, but the damage has been done. The early Windows smartphone boasted lot of options and even unauthorized third party apps that could be downloaded and installed. The problem was that every few months, it would need to be reset to factory settings because the cache problem was terrible. The phone would literally freeze up on you if you received more than one text message in a row, making it one of the most frustrating trends ever to hit the mobile market.
• 3D Displays – Even though Amazon appears to be releasing one themselves, the 3D gimmick was really impractical. Nobody wanted the games that were made to use the 3D display and the technology was just too pricey to make it feasible, making it one of the most notorious smartphone trends that didn’t last.
• WiMax – Sprint’s version of 4G LTE was a failure from the get-go, putting it up there with the Xbox 360’s HD DVD technology and the Android based Ouya console. It was a good try, but someone else just had a better idea.

• The Stylus – While the stylus has been perfected for tablets, it never should have been made for mobile phones. With the invention of the touch screen, controls are much more precise even for those of us with chubby fingers. For one thing, your cat can’t accidentally answer the phone any more. Also if you didn’t have a protective screen, the stylus made you look like you’d lent the phone to Freddy Kreuger, especially if it had a lag issue.
• Facebook Phone – Much like Windows, the social networking site had its own operating system that didn’t work out so well, making it one of the quickest deaths among the smartphone trends that didn’t work.
• Smaller Models – For a while it seemed the mobile market was obsessed with making our phones more portable and pocket friendly, but with the invention of mobile gaming on smartphones, the trend didn’t last as screen sizes needed to be larger to compensate for touch screen controls and higher resolution graphics demands.

With the evolution of smartphones ever changing, possibly with the upcoming Samsung and LG curved screens, some pioneers are bound to suffer the bitter taste of consumer indifference. Are there any other smartphone trends you remember that didn’t last?