Winners and Losers: Best and worst tech moments of 2022

OPINION: Some other year comes to and end and what better to look back and the all-time (and worst) tech moments of 2021 in the final Winners and Losers column of the year.

Even though 2021 was another twelvemonth largely relegated to being stuck indoors, that didn't stop the tech world from dropping some major headlines to catch our attention. From the iPhone 13 to the impressive Galaxy Z Flip three, there was no shortage of incredble tech this yr (unless you factor in the ongoing chip shortage), and that's just factoring in the mobile infinite.

Every bit you tin can imagine, it took quite some time and a off-white bit of fence to whittle this listing downwardly to just half-dozen entries, but we experience that these moments best encapsulate what 2021 was all most in the tech infinite.

All-time moments of 2021

Pixel 6

Starting with the more amusing moments of the year, there were enough of new phones in 2021 to get excited about, especially with giant leaps forward in foldable tech, but in a higher place all the mainline contenders, 2021 was undoubtedly the yr of the Pixel.

It's taken a long time and many trips back to the drawing board to make Google's own-brand smartphone feel like a must-accept device, just in the Pixel six, all that hard work finally paid off. Debuting Android 12 and the new 'Cloth You' overlay, the Pixel 6 actually gave Apple a run for its money, and that'south before you even mention the camera set up-upwards on this thing.

Long gone are the 12MP main sensors of quondam, replaced with a more than robust 50MP sensor that works and so much amend with Google's computational processing to produce some of the best smartphone shots nosotros've ever seen.

MacBook Pro's return to form

Apple's MacBook range has already been on an upward streak ever since the company's M1 chipsets came to market, but this was the year where we finally got to encounter the true potential of what Apple silicon could practice in the revised MacBook Pro range.

With the souped up M1 Max chip under the hood, the 2021 MacBook Pro is upwards to 2.9 times faster than the previous iteration, and able to get through a full day'due south worth of work before needing to be topped upwardly over again. All of these features are great, simply the existent stars of the bear witness are the returning ports from MacBooks of old.

Creators tin can now make use of a total SD card slot as well as a fully-diddled HDMI output for presentations, effectively giving united states of america the chance to moving ridge goodbye to the dongles out at that place that take become a neccesity e'er since Apple first did abroad with these ports. Simply put, the MacBook is back and it's better than ever.

Right to repair

In a world that's increasingly concerned with e-waste and the environmental bear on of upgrading your phone every yr, the right to repair motion seeks to requite users the ability to service their own tech without having to go through convoluted channels set up by manufacturers. And in 2021, the movement got a real boost.

New laws passed in the UK and the European union that enforce sure manufacturers to brand spare parts bachelor for their products, and for the repair and replacement procedure to be easily understood by the general public.

This doesn't apply to all pieces of tech, with the law focusing more often than not on white goods, but information technology didn't stop other companies from getting in on the activity early.

Apple announced a new 'Self Service Repair' program, wherein customers tin club the tools they need from Apple to fix their iPhone 12 or xiii themselves. That's a huge step in the right direction and we only hope that more companies continue to follow accommodate into the New Yr.

Worst tech moments of 2021

The chip shortage

Undoubtedly the biggest and almost enduring piece of tech news this year was the ongoing chip shortage that afflicted pretty much every marketplace you can think of.

Not merely has the chip shortage fabricated it well-nigh-on incommunicable to get your hands on virtually everything from the Nintendo Switch OLED to the Apple Watch Series vii, but it's likewise forced manufacturers to scale dorsum production and rethink their targets for the almost future.

Apple in particular has been hit hard by the shortage among lower than expected iPhone 13 sales, and it could have a major impact on the visitor's plans for 2022.

The demise of LG phones

Given that LG phones ever struggled to carve out a niche in the aforementioned way that Sony phones or even OnePlus handsets have managed to, the writing was on the wall for quite some time but in 2021, the company's smartphone sectionalization finally came to end.

This isn't to say that nosotros were happy to encounter the end of LG handsets, far from it. LG was one of the few companies left that was willing to try out new ideas year on year, fifty-fifty if some of those ideas didn't stick the landing. It'due south exactly the type of innovation the smartphone industry needed to go along things feeling fresh.

Simply with LG at present gone in the smartphone infinite, we're left to wonder if whatsoever other company might have upwards the drapery and continue to push the boundaries of smartphone pattern in 2022.

OnePlus Watch

Last and sadly least, the OnePlus Watch could have been then much more than – an alternative wearable to the then stagnant Habiliment OS platform but at a price that seriously undercuts the competiton. Instead nosotros got a smartwatch with no personality and fewer features than cheaper fettle trackers.

The OnePlus Spotter is at present a cautionary tale for other companies: if you program on releasing a product in a new sector, you better brand sure that it'due south a winning sell because information technology is isn't, y'all'll only damage your brand'south reputation in the process.

Unless OnePlus plans to have another stab at the habiliment market, I think it'due south best if we all left the OnePlus Lookout man in 2021 where it belongs.

You might like…

Source: https://www.trustedreviews.com/opinion/winners-and-losers-best-and-worst-tech-moments-of-2021-4191336

Posted by: brownnowerve.blogspot.com

Share this post