The Kin’s A Foul

The KIN series of smart phone devices have been nothing but a colossal fail for Microsoft. After being pulled from store shelves after dismal sales, and then reemerging several months later, KIN Studio is now officially closed.

The pulling of the plug on the service is effectively killing the device as much of its original services no longer function. Features including photo sharing, search near me, social media integration are all no longer working on the devices which renders them essentially useless for anything other than making phone calls or texting.  Although WPcentral is reporting that Zune pass still appears to be working over 3G despite originally being told that the service would only work over WiFi. 

This officially marks the end of the Kin program for Microsoft. When it was unveiled it was aimed at teens and was originally supposed to be offered with data plan below that cost less than a plan for a smartphone. But when the monthly pricing was the exact same as a smartphone, the Kin was dead before it ever hit the store shelves. While rumors that Microsoft missed Verizon's deadline for launching the device and that's why they gave it a higher data price point surfaced.

So agian as a result of KIN Studio’s termination, these following services stopped working:

-News Feed Reader

-Posting photos or status updates to social sites

-Search Near Me

-Loop

-Social network contacts

In other words, nearly every feature the social-oriented KIN was built around stopped working. On the upside, Verizon gave anyone who had the misfortune of nabbing a KIN during its 48 day lifespan a 3G device of their choosing, free of cost.