It wasn’t too long ago that we had heard rumors that Nokia was working on a unique handsetcalled the Nokia McLaren. What made the device unique is that it could offer up buttonless interaction and would feature gesture technology along the lines of the Amazon Fire Phone. Well if you were looking forward to the handset, you might be disappointed to learn that Microsoft has since killed off the device. This is according to the folks at Windows Phone Central who learnt from their sources that along with the recently announced layoffs at the company, Microsoft made the decision to kill off the McLaren. This decision was reportedly made weeks ago ahead of the announcement of the layoffs.
Starting this fall, Microsoft was poised to release a new high-end Windows Phone featuring their new gesture technology dubbed 3D Touch. The project originally went by the name ‘Goldfinger’ but later moved to the prototype device stage under the moniker ‘McLaren’. It was to be released on at least three US carriers simultaneously in addition to wider availability. Windows Phone Central has confirmed with multiple sources familiar with the matter that Microsoft is completely canceling McLaren. In effect, this leaves Microsoft in a potentially vulnerable position this fall as the hardware and services company does not have any flagship Windows Phones, to our knowledge, in the pipeline. Although the timing of this report coincides with the recent layoffs and reorganization plans at Microsoft, the decision to cancel McLaren was made within the last few weeks, prior to yesterday’s news. The reasons for canceling McLaren range from cost to Microsoft being unable to move beyond the proposal stage for interactive usages with the technology. The news of the cancellation is so recent that current GDR2 roadmaps still show McLaren and 3D Touch slated for later this year.
