This thumbnail is from a film made by General Magic, the amazing 1990s Silicon Valley startup that thought it would take the world by storm and build a smart phone 13 years before the iPhone was introduced. It didn't happen, but that's another story. This video presents hardware engineer Megan Smith (who later became the chief technology officer of the United States) showing what stage they were at regarding touchscreens and size and so much more that the General Magic phone, what some called a personal communicator, was going to become, and in just a year or two. In fact, a young engineer who worked for the company, Tony Fadell, later went on to lead the team in Apple that built the iPhone. And other members of the team left when the General Magic vision began to fall apart and formed companies like eBay and so many others. They were a great team and I was proud to work there in 1992 and 1993 as a VP of the General Magic Alliance - a group of giant companies who backed General Magic including AT&T, Motorola, Sony, Panasonic, Phillips and Apple. They called themselves magicians and they were shocked when Apple secretly built and introduced the Newton, another smart phone which also failed. While there, I also made a number of films/videos on the people and what they were doing which became a major part of a feature-length documentary now on the circuit called General Magic: The Movie. It tells some of the reasons why the company almost succeeded and ultimately failed. John Sculley, CEO of Apple at that time, called General Magic "the most important Silicon Valley company… no one ever heard of." Even though it ultimately did not succeed, the team, the vision, and what they built, is an important part in the history of the advance of communications technology.
7 янв 2022
