Generally, these events go as planned but there are also times when mistakes happen. Below are what we consider to be 10 of the biggest launch fails of all time.

1. Apple faced a network issue, where they couldn’t open a webpage, during the launch event of iPhone 4.

In 2010 when the company introduced the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs tried to load The New York Times post several times on the dedicated Safari browser. Because it was shown live to the public, errors were very likely to take place.

Even after several attempts, Jobs failed to load the page. Later, the company found out that the problem was with the Wi-Fi network and not the phone. 

2. The most anticipated feature of Apple iPhone X, FaceID, didn’t work as expected during the live presentation.

iPhone 4 launch event was not the only event that faced problems. In 2017, during the launch event of iPhone X people witnessed something similar.

The new facial recognition feature that users were waiting for didn’t work when Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, picked the phone to showcase the feature to the public.

Before giving the live demo, Federighi said that the new iPhone model could be unlocked with just a glance. But instead of unlocking, the phone asked him to enter the access code. However, the second phone worked just as expected.

It turned out that while preparing the device for the presentation the FaceID system was not trained to recognise Federighi’s face, while the second device already had the face data, hence it unlocked.

3. Volvo’s automatic braking feature didn’t work during the showcase event and the car crashed into a truck.

In the same year when iPhone 4 failed, the Swedish company, Volvo, decided to use its S60 sports sedan to showcase the new automatic braking system. The car was supposed to make an emergency stop as soon as it detects an object in the way.

But unfortunately, the car didn’t register the truck which was on its way and crashed into in. 

4. During the live launch event of Microsoft’s tablet, the device stopped working as the host was talking about the performance of the device.

The next hilarious incident took place in the year 2012 when Steven Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, was giving a presentation about Microsoft Surface Tablet.

As Sinofsky was talking about the device’s impressive performance, the tablet stopped working.

The funniest thing about this incident was that the device stopped working as soon as Sinofsky started using Internet Explorer. So it seems like it’s not just us, Microsoft also faced issues with the browser.

After several unsuccessful attempts to make the device work again, Sinofsky was forced to switch the tablet. 

5. A broken teleprompter made Michael Bay leave the stage during Samsung’s annual CES presentation because he didn’t know what to say.

Imagine you are on stage and hundreds of people are watching you but don’t have anything to say. What would you do? Leave, right? Well, this is exactly what happened during Samsung’s 2014 event. 

Famous film director and producer, Michael Bay, was invited in an event to share his experiences about Samsung’s latest curved TV. The event host asked Bay to tell about his experiences about the TV, however, after speaking a couple of words, Bay stopped.

He waited for a few seconds before leaving the stage. Later people found out that the teleprompter that was supposed to display Bay’s speech broke before he could start.

6. Atlas, an advanced humanoid robot falls off stage during a tech demonstration

Boston Dynamics is a brand that makes some mind-blowing robots. If you see any of their videos, you will find robots in different shapes and sizes trying to walk on different surfaces and people who try to shoot them down using several objects.

According to the company these tests are important to identify weaknesses and possibly avoid what happened during a presentation in June 2017. 

You can skip to 4:15 to watch the funniest part.

While on stage, Atlas successfully performed all the tasks that were assigned to him but at the end of the event, the robot just fell off the stage. It turned out that the operator who later took control of the robot didn’t notice a spotlight on the stage causing Atlas to fall.

7. Windows 98 ran into Blue Screen Of Death during the presentation as soon as a Bill Gates connected a projector to the computer.

During the demonstration of USB plug-n-play function of Windows 98, the decision of connecting the computer to a projector didn’t go very well. As soon as the projector was connected, the computer ran into Blue Screen Of Death.

As a response to the event, Bill Gates joked that this was the reason why the sale of Windows 98 didn’t start.

8. Windows Vista’s speech recognition system didn’t recognise the speech and converted the word MOM into AUNT.

In another hilarious event, Windows Vista’s presentation became the hot topic back in 2006. At the official event, a company employee wanted to show the new voice recognition feature to the public but things went out of control as soon as he started speaking.

According to the plan, the person started dictating a letter to his mother but the assistant misunderstood the word Mom with Aunt. 

9. Tesla was demonstrating its unbreakable glass at a live event and well, it broke.

In an event in Los Angeles, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, introduced three models of the company’s first electric truck, called Cybertruck. 

Skip to 1:16 to watch the main event.

As soon as Holzhausen threw the metal ball, it shattered the side glass of the truck. Even after breaking the first glass, Musk asked Holzhausen to test the window on the passenger side but the window broke again.

10. While talking about Sony during CES 2009, Tom Hanks not only made fun of the company’s marketing team but also called Sony’s e-reader a Kindle and silently admitted that he doesn’t actually use the company’s computer.

If there was an Oscar for CES intros, Tom Hanks would’ve won it for his speech during CES 2009. While speaking on behalf of Sony, Hanks started by making fun of tech keynote presenters.

He then starts the full speech that was prewritten for him, laughing through the absurdity of whatever the Sony marketing team came up with. Hanks nearly fumbled a line about Sony’s e-reader as a Kindle, he then took a pause to silently admit he doesn’t actually use a Sony computer.

These multi-million dollar companies making mistakes makes us realise that we all are humans and things can go wrong with the best of us.