At Google’s annual I/O developer conference, the tech giant announced a slew of AI-powered features that will soon be available for its core apps, such as Gmail, Documents, sheets, photos, and meet. It even showed one updated version of Project Starlinethe 3D video calling booth that announced it back in 2021.
While they’re all great fun and exciting, Google’s flashy new project announcements are usually met with some trepidation from the tech press. The company has undeniably revolutionized search and advertising, and products like Gmail and Docs are incredibly popular. But it has also announced countless products to much fanfare, not supported, then quietly killed them. Let’s take a look at some of the high and low lights of Google’s product graveyard.
Google Glass, Wave, Reader and the others that people are still bitter about
Over the past two decades, Google has destroyed many products – and some of them were quite popular, or at least had diehard fans. Others, not so much.
Google Reader is perhaps the biggest casualty here. The beloved RSS reader app was mercilessly abolished, possibly in an attempt to drive people to Google+. It is still missed by many technical writers.
The Google URL Shortener was a handy free alternative to bit.ly and other similar services. It was killed in 2019. Another similar service, Google Go Links, which allowed you to create your own custom URL shortener, was also discontinued in 2021.
Inbox by Gmail, an innovative mobile-first email app, was removed in 2019. However, most features like email snoozing and smart replies have been added to Gmail.
Another groundbreaking Google app was Google Wave: a real-time document editing and collaboration tool. Apps like Notion, Slack, and even Google Docs owe a lot to the industry-leading app, which was discontinued in 2012.
Less bitterly, Google Glass was discontinued for consumers in 2015, and the Glass OS version of Android was discontinued a few years later in 2017. Its official demise was announced earlier this year. Not many people were sad to see it go, but if the rumors are to be believed, we may be getting ready the next AR glasses hype cycle.
And perhaps most famously, Google+ was an attempt to build a Facebook-style social network that backfired spectacularly. Despite cramming Google+ features into YouTube, Gmail, and every other Google app, it got faded in 2019.
Now, with some of the big names out of the way, here are some products you may have forgotten Google even launched.
Stadia, we barely knew you
Google Stadia was a cloud gaming service that ran through Chrome, a Chromecast, or a mobile app. The idea was that you could stream games that were actually played on Google’s server. As long as you had a fast enough internet connection, it would effectively turn your underpowered smartphone, TV or PC into a game console.
Unfortunately, despite some devoted fans and a lot of hype from Google, the company never delivered what a game console needs: great games. It stopped working at the beginning of this year.
Jacquard
One of Google’s wildest ideas, Jacquard, was a collaboration between Google and Levi’s, the clothing brand. Somehow, the two companies made two generations of a smart jacket: one in 2017 and another in 2019. It featured a touch-sensitive strip of fabric on your wrist so you could play and pause music and answer phone calls.
While it’s hard to argue that Jacquard ever really took off, Google officially killed it earlier this year.
YouTube (not so) Originals
Launched in 2016, YouTube Originals was one somewhat misguided attempt to compete with Netflix and justify the $12/month Google was asking for YouTube Premium (called YouTube Red at the time). Already big YouTubers like PewDiePie were given big budgets to make poorly received shows.
Although it wasn’t all bad: Cobra KaiA continuation on The karate kidgot two seasons as a YouTube Original before moving to Netflix.
At the end of 2022, YouTube Originals was finally discontinued.
About 9 different messaging apps
Google has a long history of releasing messaging apps before lumping them together, twisting them, killing them and repurposing the name. The situation is so ridiculous that we had to write a full explanation last year.
But in short, Google currently has three communication apps: Google Chat, Google Meet, and Messages. To get to this streamlined situation, it killed, renamed, or otherwise discontinued: Google Talk or GChat, Google+ Messenger, SMS on Android, Google Voice, Google Messenger (yet another app), YouTube Messages, Google Allo, Google Duo, and Google Hangouts.
So while Project Starline looks great, we fear there’s a good chance the general public will never see it. It seems more likely that the AI features will get some support, but who knows how long Google will let them stick around.