2024 was a big year for technology, with artificial intelligence quickly becoming the most promising technological development since, perhaps, the Internet itself. We also saw a ton of amazing new gadgets, laptops, phones, tablets, electric cars, and yes, even a few cool new robots.
What we didn’t see, however, were several services and products that were promised for 2024, but never saw the light of day, or were pushed back to 2025 and beyond.
We waited and waited, and now that the year is over and 2025 is definitely here, it’s time to redo what we’ve learned. he didn’t got this year.
Apple’s next-generation CarPlay
Erm, 2024 is over, folks. Where are the cars?
Credit: Apple
This is perhaps the most obvious omission. Apple has been working on the next generation of CarPlay for a long time. In the company’s own words, it’s “the ultimate iPhone experience for the car,” as it basically takes the car’s infotainment and instrument cluster and turns it into “the best integrated design experience for your car and your iPhone.”
While today’s CarPlay is adequate, it still feels oddly disconnected from the rest of the car’s interface. But this new generation of CarPlay sounds like it could be as close to the iconic Apple Car as we’ll ever get, as the company has reportedly stopped working on the project after a decade of development.
The problem? The first cars with this new CarPlay were supposed to arrive in 2024, but they didn’t. It’s not just wishful thinking on our part, either: Apple has clearly said so. In fact, the company’s CarPlay site still says that “first models arrive in 2024”. Sorry, but 2024 is over, so hopefully the new models equipped with CarPlay will arrive soon. If it does, we expect it to be from Porsche, which has been working to integrate the latest CarPlay functionality into its upcoming models.
Mashable Light Speed
Spotify’s hi-fi section
Spotify’s hi-fi subscription section is one of the weirdest tech stories in recent years. The company first announced in February 2021 (yes, almost four years ago), and, at the time, it seemed like a logical step to compete with Amazon, Apple, and Tidal, all of which offered high-fidelity streaming music services.
Ah, the sweet sound of Spotify Hi-Fi not launching another year after it was promised.
Credit: Spotify
Fast forward a few years, and Spotify did not announce anything like that, while insisting that something like a hi-fi subscription category will come eventually (however, it could be called Spotify Supremium, or something else entirely).
Currently, there is no launch date for the service (well, if you don’t count “later this year” which is what Spotify said in 2021), and the details are still very sketchy. We last heard about this issue from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, who said that a “deluxe version of Spotify” with “better” sound is coming, but he wouldn’t share when. Well, it won’t happen in 2024.
Tesla’s cheap car, Robotaxi, and unsupervised FSD
The fact that we didn’t get any of the above in 2024 came as no surprise to anyone, as Tesla’s CEO publicly stated that they are all coming in 2025 and beyond. But it’s worth looking into the topic, as a super-cheap, self-driving Tesla, the Tesla Robotaxi that pulls people, and a software version of Tesla’s full-self drive (FSD) that can drive the car autonomously, have all been promised. 2024 (or earlier) at some point.
For example, Musk said in 2020 that Tesla could launch a $25,000 car by 2023. The idea has seen a lot of back-and-forth over the years, with Musk recently offering the idea of ​​a “$25,000 non-robotaxi mainstream car model,” while simultaneously promising an “affordable” Tesla in the first half of 2025.
Per Musk, the Tesla Robotaxis was supposed to roam the streets from 2020; now the actual Robotaxi model (or CyberCab, we are not sure of the name) has been revealed, and it is scheduled to be launched in 2026.
The Tweet may have been deleted
Finally, the unsupervised FSD, which should bring new Teslas to a point where they can drive themselves without the need for human driver intervention, is now scheduled for 2025, although it was originally promised way, way before that. The final widely available, supervised version of FSD is being launched as late as 2024, and reports indicate that the company may be close to piloting it.
