The crowdfunded Moto Mod keyboard is dead

More than a few companies tried burying bad news during yesterday's Apple keynote. The latest to come to light is a tough blow for fans of physical keyboards: Livermorium announced that it's ending work on its Moto Mod keyboard. In an update on its IndieGogo page, the company writes that it can't scrounge up any interest in selling the accessory, largely due to the Moto Z being "extremely unpopular in most places."

Livermorium also can't muster the funds to source the parts needed to enter full production. The gulf between the amount of components it can afford and the minimum order amount is wide, and without securing outside funding, Livermorium won't be able to bring the project to market as planned.

The Indiegogo update goes into great detail explaining the decision, but the tl;dr is it didn't make sense to keep going down this path. "We cannot keep supporting a product which has no financial interest elsewhere and still increasing cost everyday to get it produced."

For context, the campaign had a paltry 1,653 backers and $164,706 in pledges.

However, just because it's on Indiegogo doesn't mean you'll lose the funds you pledged. The company will honor full refunds for those who haven't received theirs yet, or, you can stick around for its replacement project: a "High-end and Premium Landscape Slider Smartphone." The firm started developing this, codenamed "Q-device," in parallel to the keyboard mod, and doesn't have many details to share at the moment.

There's room for niche phones, sure, but it doesn't seem like people are exactly running down the streets screaming for one with a physical keyboard. Well, unless they're BlackBerry devotees, and even then, it's not like the KEY2 doesn't exist.

While it isn't the scale of Google shuttering Inbox or the announcement that the CEO of Engadget's parent company, Oath, will leave before 2019, this is unfortunate news for at least a few people nonetheless.

Via: The Verge

Source: IndieGogo



via Engadget RSS Feed https://ift.tt/2x7etSc
RSS Feed

If New feed item from http://www.engadget.com/rss-full.xml, then send me


Unsubscribe from these notifications or sign in to manage your Email Applets.

IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Evernote cuts staff as user growth stalls

Image
Note-taking app Evernote has fallen on hard times of late, culminating in its latest spate of job cuts impacting 15 percent of its workforce (54 employees). CEO Chris O' Neil -- an ex-Googler who took the reins in 2015 -- announced the firings at an all-hands meeting earlier today, reports TechCrunch . In a message on the Evernote blog , O' Neill admitted he'd set "incredibly aggressive goals" for the company in 2018. He continued: "Going forward, we are streamlining certain functions, like sales, so we can continue to speed up and scale others, like product development and engineering." The layoffs follow an exec exodus just weeks ago and the company's recent brand refresh (complete with a refined logo and wordmark). But critics are more concerned about its product, especially the free tier, which they claim lacks the perks to
Read more

The best air conditioner

Image
By Liam McCabe This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter . When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here . After six summers of researching, testing, and recommending window air conditioners, we've learned that quiet and affordable ACs make most people the happiest—and we think the LG LW8016ER will fit the bill in most rooms. This 8,000 Btu unit cools as efficiently and effectively as any model with an equal Btu rating, and runs at a lower volume and deeper pitch than others at this price. Little extra features like a fresh-air vent, two-axis fan blades, and a removable drain plug help set it apart, too. The LG LW8016ER is a top choice for an office or den, and some people will find it quiet enough for a bedroom, too. If our main pic
Read more

We won't see a 'universal' vape oil cartridge anytime soon

Image
Pre-loaded cartridges of cannabis concentrate are currently among the most popular means of consumption, and for good reason. They're discreet to use and easy to handle, a far cry from the dark days of 2016 when we had to dribble hash oil or load wax into narrow-mouthed vape pens by hand. But, frustratingly, an ever increasing number of oil cartridge manufacturers employ one-off design standards so that their products won't work with those of their competitors, thereby locking customers into proprietary ecosystems. We've already seen this with nicotine vaporizers -- which has a seen a massive rise in "pod systems" in the last few years, each outfitted with a unique canister and battery built to be incompatible with those of their competition. Is it too late for the burgeoning cannabis industry to set a universal standard for their product designs?
Read more