8 Useful Products that Got the Axe, Will Be Sorely Missed (or Not)
The tech and software world is constantly changing and evolving. While new products hit the market, hoping that the functionality they have to offer will draw a huge crowd, other products get the axe – they’re discontinued, retired, or shut down.
This is the case with the 8 products presented below. They are a thing of the past. And if they haven’t already been discontinued, they will be soon.
1. Samsung’s Galaxy Gifts program
Via Galaxy Gifts, Samsung offered premium apps to its customers. The reasoning was quite simple: buy a Galaxy device and you get some gifts. You still get gifts if you purchase a Galaxy Device, but you don’t get them through Galaxy Gifts, because the Galaxy Gifts program has been discontinued as of March 31, 2016.
You now get your gifts in the form of a Galaxy Game Pack, a special package created just for Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge customers.
2. Intel's Atom smartphone processors
One of the reasons why you bought an ASUS ZenFone 2 smartphone is because it’s powered by an Intel processor, and you absolutely love the fact that it says “Intel inside” on the back. You best sit down, because I have some bad news.
Intel isn’t doing very well. Consequently, the company has decided to re-evaluate its projects, as part of its "transformation from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices." Consequently, Intel cancelled the Broxton platform as well as the SoFIA fully-integrated mobile chipset.
3. No more support for Firefox on older OS X versions
You’re up-to-date, running the latest Firefox release? That’s good. But you’re running it on an older version of Apple’s OS X, such as OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard? That’s not good.
Come August, Mozilla plans to end support for Firefox on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, as well as OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. End of support means that the Firefox web browser will no longer receive any security updates and won’t get any new features.
Don’t get mad at Mozilla! Since Apple no longer supports these OS X versions, why should Mozilla? What you should do is channel your energy into upgrading to a version of OS X that Apple supports. Instructions on how to upgrade are available here.
If you don’t want to upgrade to a newer OS X version, then you need to switch to Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release). While it’s not meant for individual users, this Firefox version will continue to support OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 until mid-2017.
4. Disney Infinity action-adventure sandbox video game
If you’ve never heard of the Disney Infinity game and you want to learn more about it, don’t bother. Disney shut down Avalanche Software, its internal game development house, and discontinued the Infinity line of games and accompanying figurines.
“Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it,” said John Blackburn, Senior Vice President of Disney Infinity.
Disney will release three new characters from "Alice Through the Looking Glass" this May and a "Finding Dory" play set in June. After that, the Disney Infinity retail releases will come to a halt.
5. The Chinese version of Microsoft’s MSN
Microsoft’s main purpose right now is to get you to switch to Windows 10, even by tricking you into it. And because Microsoft is focusing its resources on Windows 10 software and services, it can’t maintain MSN China anymore. Come June 7, the MSN web portal in China will close.
6. The beautifully designed Sunrise calendar app
We already knew that Microsoft plans to discontinue the Sunrise calendar app. What we did not know was when that would happen. Now we do! On August 31, 2016.
Microsoft bought Sunrise so it could take all its amazing features and implement them into Outlook. And that is precisely what the Sunrise team is doing. Unfortunately though, this means the Sunrise team has no time to work on the Sunrise app. So the decision has been made to pull the app from app stores and then discontinue it.
"We’re not able to support and update Sunrise anymore," said the Sunrise team. “No new features. No bug fixes. For us, that’s the definition of a lousy app and it’s not a user experience we want to leave you with. For this reason, we’ll be removing Sunrise from the app stores in the next few days. On August 31st, we’ll officially shut down the app and it will stop working all together."
7. Microsoft’s Project Spark game
Project Spark, Microsoft’s game about making games, after going completely free-to-play back in September 2015, is now going the way of the dodo. In stages. Stage one, pull the download from the Windows Store and Xbox Marketplace. That already happened, on May 13. Stage two, make online services unavailable. That will happen on September 12, 2016.
"This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly. When "Project Spark" transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios. While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it’s simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping “Project Spark” up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision," explained Community Manager Thomas Gratz.
8. Google's Nexus Player
When Google revealed the codename for Android 5.0, it also revealed a new device developed in partnership with ASUS: a streaming media player called Nexus Player.
It seems that the Nexus Player has been discontinued. Google quietly removed it from the Google Store; and if you want to get it from a retailer, they’re all out of stock.
This is the case with the 8 products presented below. They are a thing of the past. And if they haven’t already been discontinued, they will be soon.
1. Samsung’s Galaxy Gifts program
Via Galaxy Gifts, Samsung offered premium apps to its customers. The reasoning was quite simple: buy a Galaxy device and you get some gifts. You still get gifts if you purchase a Galaxy Device, but you don’t get them through Galaxy Gifts, because the Galaxy Gifts program has been discontinued as of March 31, 2016.
You now get your gifts in the form of a Galaxy Game Pack, a special package created just for Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge customers.
2. Intel's Atom smartphone processors
One of the reasons why you bought an ASUS ZenFone 2 smartphone is because it’s powered by an Intel processor, and you absolutely love the fact that it says “Intel inside” on the back. You best sit down, because I have some bad news.
Intel isn’t doing very well. Consequently, the company has decided to re-evaluate its projects, as part of its "transformation from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices." Consequently, Intel cancelled the Broxton platform as well as the SoFIA fully-integrated mobile chipset.
3. No more support for Firefox on older OS X versions
You’re up-to-date, running the latest Firefox release? That’s good. But you’re running it on an older version of Apple’s OS X, such as OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard? That’s not good.
Come August, Mozilla plans to end support for Firefox on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, as well as OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. End of support means that the Firefox web browser will no longer receive any security updates and won’t get any new features.
Don’t get mad at Mozilla! Since Apple no longer supports these OS X versions, why should Mozilla? What you should do is channel your energy into upgrading to a version of OS X that Apple supports. Instructions on how to upgrade are available here.
If you don’t want to upgrade to a newer OS X version, then you need to switch to Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release). While it’s not meant for individual users, this Firefox version will continue to support OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 until mid-2017.
4. Disney Infinity action-adventure sandbox video game
If you’ve never heard of the Disney Infinity game and you want to learn more about it, don’t bother. Disney shut down Avalanche Software, its internal game development house, and discontinued the Infinity line of games and accompanying figurines.
“Our goal for Disney Infinity was to bring the best of Disney storytelling to life in homes around the world, and with your support we accomplished that. We hope you had as much fun playing the game as we had making it,” said John Blackburn, Senior Vice President of Disney Infinity.
Disney will release three new characters from "Alice Through the Looking Glass" this May and a "Finding Dory" play set in June. After that, the Disney Infinity retail releases will come to a halt.
5. The Chinese version of Microsoft’s MSN
Microsoft’s main purpose right now is to get you to switch to Windows 10, even by tricking you into it. And because Microsoft is focusing its resources on Windows 10 software and services, it can’t maintain MSN China anymore. Come June 7, the MSN web portal in China will close.
6. The beautifully designed Sunrise calendar app
We already knew that Microsoft plans to discontinue the Sunrise calendar app. What we did not know was when that would happen. Now we do! On August 31, 2016.
Microsoft bought Sunrise so it could take all its amazing features and implement them into Outlook. And that is precisely what the Sunrise team is doing. Unfortunately though, this means the Sunrise team has no time to work on the Sunrise app. So the decision has been made to pull the app from app stores and then discontinue it.
"We’re not able to support and update Sunrise anymore," said the Sunrise team. “No new features. No bug fixes. For us, that’s the definition of a lousy app and it’s not a user experience we want to leave you with. For this reason, we’ll be removing Sunrise from the app stores in the next few days. On August 31st, we’ll officially shut down the app and it will stop working all together."
7. Microsoft’s Project Spark game
Project Spark, Microsoft’s game about making games, after going completely free-to-play back in September 2015, is now going the way of the dodo. In stages. Stage one, pull the download from the Windows Store and Xbox Marketplace. That already happened, on May 13. Stage two, make online services unavailable. That will happen on September 12, 2016.
"This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly. When "Project Spark" transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios. While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it’s simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping “Project Spark” up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision," explained Community Manager Thomas Gratz.
8. Google's Nexus Player
When Google revealed the codename for Android 5.0, it also revealed a new device developed in partnership with ASUS: a streaming media player called Nexus Player.
It seems that the Nexus Player has been discontinued. Google quietly removed it from the Google Store; and if you want to get it from a retailer, they’re all out of stock.
