Excluding some of the mentioned ones like Google Reader, ICQ, Winamp etc. All them were at one point in time Champion in their own respective domain. They succeed at the time, so I don't see how it is a failure. They could just be more accurately described as killed or failed to move forward and compete.
So far
Google Wave, Pepple Smart Watch, XMPP, Unity, WebOS, Zune, Windows Phone.
I don't see any of these as "great" at all. And they aren't better in any sense. Google Wave might have succeeded if it was aiming at business use case, but for average consumers I doubt anyone are interested, and that is why it was shutted down.
I have yet to see a single consumer who looked at the UX of Zune, Windows Phone, Unity and thought I wish my Android / iPhone has that.
It is the same thing again and again, Engineers, or Nerds are designing what they thought was good, trying to solve problems where consumers don't have or don't care. There are many case of SaaS successes because their market are filled with the people having the same problem in business or Engineering.
The Nokia 920 is still the phone I've been the happiest with, of all I've had. A catchy design, a screen with a sunlight mode that worked, amazing call quality, great photo quality, great video quality, and impressive audio recording.
On top of that, the Windows Phone UX was so good in making you aware of everything at a glance. While Android makes you unlock the phone then swipe down to see your notifications, Windows Phone simply got all the info you needed on the home screen. Quicker, simpler, better.
Shame about the apps, yes. Google actively tried to kill Windows Phone by not making apps for it and cutting API access from lots of 3rd party apps. And while the Nokia apps were extremely good (Nokia Cinemagraph was so ahead of its time, seriously), that's not enough to sustain a whole mobile OS in this era of closed apps and walled sites.
How many times have you opened an iOS app to see what the red notification was and then realised you already knew what it was? It happens to me all the time, with windows phone the widget told me as the notification so I saved a lot of opening and closing apps.
IMHO the windows phone live tiles made the static iPhone icons look very dated (they are essentially unchanged from 1980's NeXTStep). Even now I believe the iPhone clock and calendar icons require privileged hacks to show the correct date and time.
So far
Google Wave, Pepple Smart Watch, XMPP, Unity, WebOS, Zune, Windows Phone.
I don't see any of these as "great" at all. And they aren't better in any sense. Google Wave might have succeeded if it was aiming at business use case, but for average consumers I doubt anyone are interested, and that is why it was shutted down.
I have yet to see a single consumer who looked at the UX of Zune, Windows Phone, Unity and thought I wish my Android / iPhone has that.
It is the same thing again and again, Engineers, or Nerds are designing what they thought was good, trying to solve problems where consumers don't have or don't care. There are many case of SaaS successes because their market are filled with the people having the same problem in business or Engineering.