Six of the biggest tech hits and misses in 2021 from Google, China’s Oppo, Vivo and nReal, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft

Google, Apple, Xiaomi and Vivo built chips that rival Intel’s, foldable phones became cheaper and more reliable, and nReal’s AR glasses made a breakthrough

On the downside, Apple’s AirTag was a PR disaster, Microsoft’s Surface Duo smartphone fiasco continued and a Facebook/Ray-Ban collab raised concerns

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Google’s Tensor chip is one of the tech success stories from 2021. Photo: Google

Published: 4:15pm, 26 Dec 2021Updated: 5:32pm, 28 Dec 2021

While the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is still wreaking havoc on many industries, consumer tech did not slow down in 2021.

This year we saw Google parent Alphabet build its own silicon, Apple dealing another blow to Intel, which once had a stranglehold on the computer industry, by launching its own chips, and further advancements in foldable handsets that should open the door for the category to go mainstream in 2022. Here are six product hits and misses from 2021.

1. Custom silicon

Almost everything we use these days is powered by a chip, and 2021 saw Apple, Google, Xiaomi and Vivo introduce bespoke silicon designed in-house to power specific hardware.

In 2020, Apple flipped the computing industry upside-down when it launched MacBooks running on its own smartphone-like chip instead of Intel’s processors, and the company followed that success this year with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.

As the names imply, they are souped-up versions of the M1, and the MacBooks that launched this year with those chips saw a huge performance boost over rival Intel machines. When we tested it, the 16-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro could render 4K videos more than 10 times faster than an Intel MacBook, and its battery could last an extra seven to eight hours.

Apple’s success with compact silicon for computers has led other silicon makers such as Qualcomm to consider going down this path. So unless Intel can make some technological breakthrough in the coming year or two, its dominant status in the computer industry is in jeopardy.

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