I really think the GoPro killed them. If I want good quality video, I need something better than a Flip. If I need a durable, small, device for getting some OK video, I'll get a goPro. If I need OK video quality and don't care about durability, I'll use my smart phone.<p>When I'm out skiing, I see half the teenagers with GoPro's mounted on their helmets, their ski poles, chest harnesses etc video taping each other hitting jumps to put it up on youtube. When I'm at a car race, half the guys have GoPro's mounted on their rollcage. Flip just kind of missed the niche.
Did the HD video capability of mobile phones (e.g. iPhone 4) kill the Flip? If so, this has happened before; Pure Digital's first product was a cheap point-and-shoot camera that you'd take in for processing, but it was also beaten by the rise of (equally poor quality) cellphone cameras.<p>Interesting take-away from a user experience perspective.
A dedicated device that is famously easy to use, still loses out to more complicated devices that do everything.<p>History of Pure Digital and Flip:<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/19/flip-video-wrong-wrong-wrong-and-then-so-so-right/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/19/flip-video-wrong-wrong-wron...</a>
Imagine if they had bothered to put an ethernet jack on it, or wifi in it, or made it time-lapse capable out of the box. Or made the whole thing USB-stick-sized. There are so many things you can do with cheap cameras that you can't do with an expensive camera phone - the problem here is a total lack of vision.<p>(and yeah, I'm aware of IP cams, and their wretched ActiveX-only interfaces, and their price range, and they don't fill the spaces I'm talking about).
I'm glad I got my flip before they shut it down! It's been a tremendous asset in catching all my daughter's big moments so far. The value for me is in how quickly it boots up and starts recording, the fact that it's on a completely separate battery to my phone, has a good picture, steady cam and plays nice with iPhoto. It also came with a nice little tripod that we set up at christmas/birthday to catch the opening of presents. Whilst one could certainly solve the problem with a smart phone I've enjoyed having a dedicated device for all this.<p>EDIT: accidentally submitted half finished last sentence then went through a train tunnel hence delay in completion :)
Really? We're surprised by this?<p>Camera phones with video recording capabilities are almost ubiquitous. More then that, they're cheaper and solve the primary usage case better then the portable Flip cameras do. Flip cameras provided better quality portable video and now that embedded mobile technology has caught up to that quality, justifying the price to carry around another device is difficult.
The Flip's strength is it's simplicity. Sorry, but I don't buy the idea elsewhere on this thread that Camera phones (w/ video recording) or GoPro's have captured this market. Yes, they both cover some of it, but lets face it we're the geeks - we're likely to spend money on the latest gadget.<p>The use case I want to suggest is my parents (in their early 60's). They both have cell phones, but they are not smartphones (they're as likely to get an iphone/android device as they are to go base jumping). They got a Flip about 2 years ago and have recorded over 1,000 hours of their grandkids (my kids) on it so far! It's easy to keep in a pocket or a bag, there's an on/off switch and a big red button to record, and of course it easily plugs in to their laptop (mom) / PC (dad). It had made a massive difference to them, and I think they're more likely to record stuff on the Flip than to take a picture of it :-)<p>Sad to see the Flip go.
I own 2 flips and I love the simplicity, I share it with my kids and extended family for all occassions.<p>Cisco is positioning itself as enterprise networking company.<p>They should not kill the Flip business, selling it is a good option.
Flip built an interesting product, but it just doesn't offer anything anymore.<p>I came close to buying one a number of times, but never pulled the trigger because it would have been another device to carry and I wasn't sure how much I'd really use it.<p>Now, both my phone and my iPod Touch offer everything the Flip did, and I'm already carrying them around with me.
I got the Kodak video cameras:<p>Playsport - waterproof
Playtouch - for non waterproof and editing video<p>Love them both - I have two smartphones and do take pics and record video too - but for taking video or pics of my babu, recreation, or just fun - the dedicated device is actually really useful. Sure, when I'm out and about I record on my smartphone and send the video up to Facebook, but for anything business related or just seriously good video quality and long recording times, I'm back to my Kodaks.<p>The Kodak's are far better than my Flip by the way, for quality and reliability. So I'll keep my Kodak cameras for those purposes and it's nice not having an incoming call interrupt my recording.<p>As you say - we are tech geeks. Krschultz is wrong, nobody but the small community of us geeks care about these cameras. It's the smartphone that killed the pocket video market.
I use 3 Flip cameras to create a video podcast for my church each week. I'm not going for great quality, I'm going for good enough with a simple form factor and and ease of use. This is really disappointing and after what they did to Linksys I'll reconsider any product that I use or am looking at using after Cisco buys them ...
Flips are a pretty great tool in an informal educational setting where you wanna just hand some one a dumb simple device with a record button. I understand that this was never a big enough market to sustain the product, but the ed. world will mourn the loss of these devices.
Even when the Flip was hot (I got one for Christmas a few years ago), the thing felt like a cheap toy. Once smartphones with decent video capabilities came out, it REALLY felt like a cheap toy.