2024 was an enormous 12 months for tech, with synthetic intelligence quick turning into essentially the most promising tech development since, nicely, maybe the web itself. We additionally noticed a ton of unbelievable new devices, laptops, telephones, tablets, electrical automobiles, and sure, even a few cool new robots.
What we did not see, nevertheless, is a few providers and merchandise that have been promised for 2024, however merely by no means noticed the sunshine of day, or have been postponed into 2025 and past.
We waited and waited, and now that the 12 months is finished and 2025 is most positively right here, it is time to do a recap of the stuff we did not get this 12 months.
Apple’s next-gen CarPlay
Erm, 2024 is over, of us. The place are the vehicles?
Credit score: Apple
That is maybe essentially the most simple omission. Apple has lengthy been engaged on the subsequent era of CarPlay. Within the firm’s personal phrases, it is “the ultimate iPhone experience for the car,” because it principally takes over the automobile’s infotainment and instrument cluster and turns it right into a “cohesive design experience that is the very best of your car and your iPhone.”
Whereas the CarPlay of as we speak is sufficient, it nonetheless feels oddly disconnected from the remainder of the automobile’s consumer interface. However this new era of CarPlay sounds prefer it might deliver us as near the fabled Apple Automotive as we’re ever going to get, on condition that the corporate reportedly stopped engaged on the project after a decade of growth.
The issue? The primary vehicles with this new CarPlay have been purported to arrive in 2024, however did not. It isn’t simply wishful considering on our half, both: Apple explicitly mentioned so. Actually, the corporate’s CarPlay web site nonetheless says that the “first models arrive in 2024”. Sorry to be a bummer, however 2024 is over, so hopefully the brand new CarPlay-equipped fashions will arrive quickly. When it does occur, we anticipate it to be in a Porsche, which has been working to combine the newest CarPlay performance into its upcoming fashions.
Mashable Gentle Pace
Spotify’s hi-fi tier
Spotify’s hi-fi subscription tier is among the weirdest tech tales in recent times. The corporate initially introduced it in February 2021 (sure, almost 4 years in the past), and, on the time, it appeared like a logical step as much as compete with Amazon, Apple, and Tidal, all of which supplied high-fidelity streaming on their music providers.
Ah, the candy sound of Spotify Hello-Fi not launching yet one more 12 months after it was promised.
Credit score: Spotify
Quick ahead a few years, and Spotify launched nothing of the kind, whereas stubbornly sustaining that one thing akin to a hi-fi subscription tier is finally coming (it could, nevertheless, be referred to as Spotify Supremium, or one thing else fully).
Proper now, there is no launch date for the service (nicely, should you do not depend the “later this year” which is what Spotify mentioned in 2021), and the small print are nonetheless very murky. Final we have heard on the matter was from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, who mentioned {that a} “deluxe version of Spotify” with “better sound” is coming, however he would not share when. Properly, it actually will not occur in 2024.
Tesla’s cheaper automobile, Robotaxi, and unsupervised FSD
The truth that we did not get any of the above in 2024 hardly stunned anybody, on condition that Tesla CEO publicly mentioned they’re all coming in 2025 and past. However it’s value revisiting the subject, because the fabled super-affordable Tesla, the self-driving, people-hauling Tesla Robotaxi, and a model of Tesla’s full-self driving (FSD) software program that may drive the automobile autonomously, have been all promised for 2024 (or earlier) in some unspecified time in the future.
For instance, Musk mentioned in 2020 that Tesla might launch a $25,000 automobile by 2023. The concept noticed a lot forwards and backwards over time, with Musk not too long ago giving up on the thought of a “$25,000 non-robotaxi regular car model,” whereas on the identical time promising a “more affordable” Tesla within the first half of 2025.
Per Musk, Tesla Robotaxis have been purported to roam the streets as early as 2020; now the precise Robotaxi (or CyberCab, we’re undecided in regards to the identify) mannequin has been revealed, and is scheduled to launch in 2026.
Lastly, unsupervised FSD, which ought to deliver newer Teslas to the purpose at which they’ll drive themselves with out the necessity of a human driver’s intervention, is now scheduled for 2025, although it was initially promised manner, manner sooner than that. The final broadly obtainable, supervised model of FSD launched very late in 2024, and studies point out the corporate could lastly be near nailing it.
