Another April Fools Day has come and gone. The tech world did it’s part. Let’s look at some of the most memorable April fools’ pranks of 2016.
Let’s start with Google. Over the years, the Internet giant has given us some of the most memorable pranks ever! This year, not so much. They came up with the GMail Mic Drop. They advertised this as a way to have the last word to reply emails. Once you send the response, you’ll never have the conversation again. The result was email chaos. Gmail users started sending Mic Drops into business emails. It even had a bug that sent the Mic Drop even when people weren’t trying to. Google had to disable mic drop because the joke caused more headaches than laughter. Think Geek took advantage of the virtual reality craze. They came up with a supposedly VR device, but all it really did was tickle you and spray you with water. In your face, VR fans! Apple music had their fun with music icon Taylor Swift and the beef they had. She downloads music while on her treadmill, begins her workout, falls down, and continues rapping to the music. But my favorite was by online language learning institute Duolingo. They offered a fake promotion of a pillow guaranteed to make you fluent in a language overnight. I hope nobody actually tried to buy such a pillow.
There were many other gimmicks, pranks and commercials that celebrated the day. So this year’s pranks weren’t as legendary as years past, but it?was good to still see people participate. There were some pretty good You Tube videos that got into the April Fools spirit. Google tried this year. But their main prank backfired. That’s the way it goes sometimes. What was your favorite tech based April Fools joke this year?