Description
I made this launch video back in 1993 to launch the incredible vision and technology developed by General Magic and backed by 6 of the largest telecommunications companies in the world in an alliance. Oddly, although the company failed, as a vision video, was still superb.
Although the company did not succeed, I am proud of the vision video that I created to launch the company. It was presented in New York in 1993. The press gave the launch and the vision major play.
While General Magic (an Apple spin-off founded in 1990) didn't technically invent the absolute first cellular-capable handheld device, they are widely credited with inventing the modern concept of the smartphone.
In the early 1990s, they designed a device called the Magic Cap-powered "Personal Intelligent Communicator" (manufactured by partners like Sony as the Magic Link and Motorola as the Envoy). What they envisioned and built was remarkably prescient. Long before the iPhone or Android, General Magic conceptualized and implemented:
A handheld, touchscreen user interface.The concept of downloadable software "apps."
Mobile email, instant messaging, and emojis. On-screen graphics resembling a desktop/office space. An early form of cloud computing (via their Telescript network language).
While IBM's Simon Personal Communicator (1994) is technically considered the first commercial phone with a touchscreen and PDA features, General Magic was the company that truly mapped out the DNA, ecosystem, and user experience of the modern smartphone.
Despite having a team of legendary tech pioneers (including Mac co-creators Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, and future tech giants like Tony Fadell, Megan Smith, and Andy Rubin), General Magic crashed and burned spectacularly, liquidating in 2002. Their failure is a classic Silicon Valley case study in being too early to market.
General Magic designed an ecosystem meant for an interconnected world, but the infrastructure didn’t exist yet. They relied on a proprietary, closed network dial-up system built with AT&T called Telescript. Just as they were launching, the open World Wide Web exploded in popularity. General Magic missed the internet wave by building a closed wall instead of riding the open web. Furthermore, wireless data networks at the time were incredibly slow, expensive, and unreliable.
The hardware required to run their advanced software was bulky, suffered from terrible battery life, and was prohibitively expensive. The devices cost around $800 to $1,000 in mid-1990s money (equivalent to nearly $2,000 today), making them an impossible sell for average consumers.
Apple's CEO at the time, John Sculley, served on General Magic's board and watched their development closely. Apple subsequently pushed forward with its own handheld PDA project, the Apple Newton, which launched in 1993 and directly competed with General Magic before they could even get their product out the door. Later, sleeker, cheaper, and simpler devices like the Palm Pilot focused on doing just a few things well (calendars and notes) rather than trying to change the entire world at once.
In 1993–1994, the average consumer didn't understand why they needed a "personal communicator." Cell phones were still large blocks used primarily by business executives for voice calls, and laptops were just starting to become mainstream. Explaining a device that combined a computer, a phone, email, and a fax machine into a pocket-sized gadget was too far ahead of what the public was ready to buy.
While the company failed, its DNA succeeded. The alumni of General Magic went on to apply everything they learned there to build the iPhone (Tony Fadell), create Android (Andy Rubin), and lead major tech advancements at Google and eBay (Megan Smith and Pierre Omidyar). Your video description puts it perfectly: as a vision video, it is still superb.