FLO TV is dead, long live portable TV

By -
FLO TV was a terrible idea by Qualcomm, and no quantity of advertising (including ads in last year's superbowl) was going to save this one. You were asking us to carry around another small black square with a screen and pay another subscription every month.

No way buster.

I just sat through a number of new product pitches earlier today. Three of them were some sort of tablet, but specialized in some form.

I will say this straight up: if you are thinking some kind of single-use phone to tablet sized device is a good idea - it isnt. E-book readers are the single exception because they are specialized and serve a huge market, but the concept of paying for mobile TV? I get mobile TV on my Pre. I even watched a lot of the World Cup on the phone while I was on my boat this summer. Why the hell would I want to carry another similar sized device? Music? My phone. Movies? My phone. Games? My phone. Mobile TV? My phone. Mobile internet? My phone.

FLO TV was a terrible idea, and someone at Qualcomm should have been able to read the writing which was plastered all across the goddamn world in billions of dollars of sales of smartphones with big-ass screens. But they didn't and they paid. Bad Qualcomm, bad.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Top 10 Ways to Not Suck at Driving

By -
Image
There are a lot of shitty drivers out there. Actually, most people are shitty drivers. They don't really know anything about cars, about driving, about limits of adhesion, how to react when things go badly, or what snow does to your ability to drive. In fact, most people think that driving slowly, regardless of what lane you are in, whether you are merging onto a highway or holding up 50 cars behind you, means "being a good driver." Just because you have spent many years driving in the left lane at 65mph does not make you a good driver, in fact, just the opposite. A good driver means you know how to drive, not that you have gotten lucky or simply average for the past 10 years. Personally, I would love to see a class in high school devoted to driving. I think it could be fun and informative while greatly reducing the number of accidents (especially fatal ones) on the roads every year. Right now, the driving exam is basically a joke, it means that you know what the pedals...
Read more