Segway - What happend?

tomk · September 14, 2003 5:01PM

Hi,

Steve was promoting the Segway in the past. What happend to it?

May be he saw the killing machine?

http://www.easy-glider.com/

popmetal · September 14, 2003 5:10PM

this thing seems like a cheap segway knockoff

I've never ridden any of them, but it looks to me as if the easy glider would be much more uncomfortable to ride.

macsrgood4u · September 14, 2003 5:11PM

Easy Glider. You've got to be kidding. It's a platform you stand on with a motorized wheel upfront to pull you. It's old technology. It doesn't self balance, needs a brake to stop, has a very large footprint and indeed looks very uncomfortable. No competition. (S.J. was reportedly upset when his ideas where not accepted by Dean Kamen - according to a book that covers the meeting. But the Woz has one and rides it a lot!).

Segway is doing pretty well, considering the price is $4950. A less expensive, slightly smaller model is coming next month.

Go to www.segway.com. the official site

or try

www.segwaychat.com.

Owners post their stories, etc.

It is believed about 10,000 units have been sold since it was introduced last March. Many police departments are using them as well as post office and other businesses.

If you are in Paris you can rent a Segway for a special tour around the city.

ari · September 14, 2003 7:04PM

Quote:

S.J. was reportedly upset when his ideas where not accepted by Dean Kamen - according to a book that covers the meeting.

What were the ideas that Job's had that Kamen rejected?

macsrgood4u · September 14, 2003 7:42PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ari

What were the ideas that Job's had that Kamen rejected?

He didn't like the way it looked among other things. I have not read the book "Code Name Ginger" which tells the story of the meeting, but SJ had specific ideas on marketing, pricing, etc. He was overruled by other people who were at the meeting. He supposedly got pissed and stomped out. You can go to Amazon.com and read excerpts from the book.

hobbes · September 14, 2003 7:56PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MacsRGood4U

He didn't like the way it looked among other things. I have not read the book "Code Name Ginger" which tells the story of the meeting, but SJ had specific ideas on marketing, pricing, etc. He was overruled by other people who were at the meeting. He supposedly got pissed and stomped out. You can go to Amazon.com and read excerpts from the book.

Jobs was right, as usual (at least on design and marketing). The technology of a Segway is amazing, but they're absurdly expensive and quite goofy-looking.

hmurchison · September 14, 2003 8:44PM

This belongs in General Discussion.

amorph · September 14, 2003 10:14PM

Moving...

torifile · September 14, 2003 10:22PM

No clue what happened to the segway, but the designers of that easy-glider site need to be SHOT. Who did they hire to do that site? It's just sick.

sc_markt · September 14, 2003 10:38PM

I belive the problem with the Segway is that it's way to expensive.

You can get a battery powered scooter for around 1/7th the price of a Segway and it'll do basically the same thing: Get you from point A to point B.

nerv · September 14, 2003 11:14PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tomk

May be he saw the killing machine?

http://www.easy-glider.com/

You know, that Easy Glider web site could use more animations. Maybe some blinking text and endlessly rolling 3-D "NEW!" buttons would have distracted me from noticing their crappy product.

splinemodel · September 14, 2003 11:32PM

There's some guy in town who rides his Segway around for no reason from time to time on Sunday mornings.

If I had a segway I'd remove the speed limiters. I wonder how fast those babies can get. . . Replacing the battery might not hurt either.

eugene · September 15, 2003 12:43AM

Hmm, is this an ad?

robo · September 15, 2003 2:56PM

Go to Central Park in NYC on any afternoon and you'll see a handful of Segways. The police are using them, as are some random people and the guy working at the roller skate dancing rink..

Here's a policeman that i filmed with my digicam a week or so ago:

http://bobobox.net/~bobo/ars/segway-nyc.mp4 (1.2MB MPEG-4 video)

-robo

murbot · September 15, 2003 3:44PM

"You start screaming and run into those trees, and I'll grab the Segway."

curiousuburb · September 15, 2003 5:02PM

if you thought the Segway was cool, check out the spoof (up within days of www.segway.com)

Megway

beautiful mimicry... fonts, logo, movie clips, all twisted to humourous effect

placebo · September 15, 2003 6:22PM

The Segway might of succeeded if Dean Kamen's blatant ignorance didn't get in the way. Most products take years to catch on, through many revisions and a gradual general acceptance to the idea. Dean thought that the Segway was different; that everyone would buy it, no matter how overpriced, goofy, or inferior it was. If Dean had launched an ad campaign, lowered the price, and maybe made some effort to giving it an overall "good mage", it would've had a fair chance.

But for now, I'm sticking to with a $200 piece of engineering that has gone through numerous cycles of trial and error and thorough revisions: my bike. And when I ride my bike, I look like (I am!) an athletic, well-balanced, healthy individual who can go as fast as he can pedal and as far as he can go, not limited by an overpriced "lazyperson-mobile".

popmetal · September 15, 2003 6:50PM

I'd prefer a bike myself, but the segway is being marketed wisely IMO. They are making a profit. There's no reason to sell it cheap because they have no competition, hence no need to wage a market share war. Most new products lose money in their introduction phase, this thing was actually making money right from the start, so I don't see how you can claim that it's a failure.

With time prices will come down an it will catch on.

Segway - What happend?

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