2016 sure had its fair share of notable newsworthy stories. But nothing has amassed a greater stir than what’s transpired within the tech world this year. We had our ups and downs but somehow, we managed to survive another year. Tech compaines, have at times, crumbled under pressure, others flopped and the rest just exploded (literally).

These are out top #EpicFails picks of 2016:

A (Note)worthy explosion

The most newsworthy story of them all, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 have literally exploded in aeroplanes, and on social media since August 24 this year. Since then, over 140 cases of Note 7 exploding worldwide have thrust the South Korean electronics giant into the spotlight, as the main culprit seems to have been the exploding battery.

Samsung, who has two battery suppliers, hasn’t named either of the companies, because they could be implicated with the exploding battery saga, and as we recall, Samsung’s profits took a plunge by 30%.   

                                    One of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that had exploded due to battery issues. Source: IOL

Right now, Samsung is focusing on producing their next device – the Samsung Galaxy S8, to be launched next year.

The company hopes that the Galaxy S8 can overturn the decline in sales and the recalls of the Note 7.

Pure karma for GoPro

We have seen everything falling from the sky but drones? What the heck?
Since GoPro unveiled their Karma drone last year, we were in utter awe. This was the drone we needed right now. Unfortunately, what goes around, comes falling out of the sky, as the company was forced to recall all 2500 drones as reports suggest that the drone lost power during operation.

This is not the first time GoPro had experienced issues with their products as their drone cameras started exploding (I’m noticing a trend here) and their Hero link got tanked.

Experts have stated that the company should have seen this happening as many suggest that it’s not easy to build drones for the consumer market.

As the company already started on shaky ground, we are yet to know what’s next for the action camera company.

Why the missing headphone jack?

It’s been a rather productive year for the American tech giants. Multiple Apple events saw plenty of products unveiled, however, Apple might be losing the plot with their ports and headphone jacks.

Why has this become such a huge topic of discussion?

Well, it all boils down to this. If you want to maintain customer relations, keep giving the customers what they want. And in this case, it started with the missing jack on the iPhone 7 and now the ports, that were suspiciously absent from the new MacBook Pro.

Why the fuss you say? To charge the iPhone with the Mac, it needs a slot to charge which the Mac doesn’t have. Yes, many will have to consider using dongles but why Apple can’t make customers’ lives easier is quite a conundrum…

Botting madness

In April, Facebook introduced bots to change how we converse through Facebook’s Messenger app. The purpose of these bots was to make customer service faster and engage in e-commerce.

Well, it kinda bombed. 

                              Source: Twitter/@david_lecourt

Not only are they a bit rudimental but the technology wasn’t ready at all. More incessant notifications and it being slow. So not cool, Facebook.  Apple, get your s*it together

Another year and Siri is still nowhere near what we expected Apple’s digital assistant to be.

Unfortunately, many of these issues are due to the iOS 10 upgrade that was unveiled this year. Many issues included Siri, lock screen, apps, pictures and vast battery issues to name.


                                          Apple’s iOS 10.1 software update has been giving most Apple customers grief this year. Due to the software, some applications have malfunctioned including Siri. Source: AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File

Well, we do hope Apple will fix these bugs but until then…

It could be back to the drawing board…

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