The tech that didn't survive 2014: iPod Classic, Plasma TVs and more

We shed a tear for the tech that is no more.

As every year comes to a close there's an inevitable look back at what happened. But there's something very sad about 2014, and sort of unusual, because this is the year where a large number of much-loved gadgets ended up exhaling their last, pushing up daisies and joining the choir invisible.

Rest in peace iPod Classic

Music players are dead. At least stand-alone ones are. The simple truth is that no one wants to use a separate player when their phone is "good enough". And, of course, there are a million reasons to use a proper player over a phone like better sound quality and well-designed navigation. The fact is, convenience is king, and no one wants to carry two things when they can carry one.


So in 2014 Apple quietly - and without a fuss - killed off the iPod Classic. The device which was able to store up to 160GB of music on a hard drive was pulled from the Apple store. Now all that remains are the flash-based players like the iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle.

Still, within the next year we're quite likely to see storage of flash players jump up again from 128GB to, perhaps, 256GB. And as great as the iPod Classic was, it was the last vestige of the old iPod. And it still needed to sync via iTunes - ugh.

Always in our hearts MSN Messenger

Microsoft has been trying to kill off messenger for years. People of a certain age will remember just how important MSN was in their early internet experiences. Relationships were made and ended on the service, emoticons became a way of life - and spawned Emoji.


What MSN did, effectively, was bring real-time chat services like IRC into a more user-friendly service. But at its core, MSN was popular because humans want to talk to one another, and that's why it's been so hard to kill.

China was the last country to be migrated to Microsoft's Skype service, and the last MSN server was closed in October. While Skype does offer a lot more, in terms of service, it doesn't quite have the lightweight charm of MSN. Goodbye MSN Messenger, we'll never forget you.

Plasma TVs - gone too soon

Back in 2008 the plasma market took a crippling blow, with Pioneer killing off the Kuro range. Even to this day, the Kuro is still one of the best TVs for picture quality and anyone seeing one now will still be impressed by it. But plasma stopped being a reality with 4K. There was no one willing to invest in producing UHD plasmas, especially with most people opting for an LCD anyway.


Samsung announced earlier this year that they would close their plasma facilities. LG was the last hold-out, but it too said it would shut its factories, making 2014 the last year of plasma production.

In the old days, plasma TVs were always a better choice for people who cared about picture quality. They had some problems, but their smooth motion and deep blacks made them the choice of anyone who loved sport and movies. LCD is catching up, but the real hope lies with OLED. Let's see what happens at CES 2015 to boost excitement again for flat panel TVs.

Windows XP, a slow and painful death

This year Microsoft finally pulled all support for its aging Windows XP. The OS has been around for 13 years now, and has certainly done its service. The big problem with killing XP is that it is still being used in offices across the globe. Replacing it means a lot of hardware upgrades and new computers, which makes the move expensive.


Some companies, and even the British Government, are paying a massive sum of money to Microsoft for continued XP support. This means that those companies will get bug fixes, as long as they are prepared to carry on paying. But come on guys, it's dead, let's give it some peace shall we?

Windows 7 is next to be retired, but with the reaction to Windows 8, there's a chance this OS might have an even more protracted exit from this life.

Nokia will rise again

Microsoft has been hard at work in killing things this year, and the saddest, perhaps, is Nokia. The last phones marked with the popular brand have rolled off the production line, and new "Lumia" phones will be known as Microsoft Lumia phones.

Almost anyone over 25 will have a story about their trusty Nokia phone, and anyone older will probably start some mobile phone conversations with, "I remember when my battery lasted a week and I could hammer nails into walls with my phone". Nokia handsets were, without doubt, built to last. Even so, the firm was slow to move on touchscreen smartphones and it was this that ultimately weakened it.

But this one has a zombified ending, because Nokia will be allowed to re-enter the smartphone market in 2016 using its own name once again. So there's a very real chance we'll see Nokia rise from the dead, and take over the world by eating all of our brains. Or something.

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