GENERAL MAGIC - Official Trailer

I'm really fond of book and medias about the creation of a product here are some of my favorites one: - link (docu series on the creation of the xbox, by microsoft) - ▶ this video (precursor of the modern smartphone, still not watched this one but look interesting) - link ( the springboard smartphone history) - link (Half life documentary, various video game documentaries are available on the noclip channel and they go with a a good amount of depth) - link (AN incredible series on japan electronic industry, not a single product per se but lot of seminal products are introduced) - link (Iphone history) - Master of doom (classic book on ID software, the last entries of abrash black art book on Quake creation are a lot of fun too) - link great article series on the creation of the crash bandicoot and its tech challenge - The Future was here – The Commodore Amiga (book on the Amiga computer creation, with lot of technical yet manageable details) All in all ressources that include a good mix of technical details and compelling narrative would be great.

Have you watched the (pretty good) documentary "General Magic"? If features a lot of the same people than folklore.org, to the point one could consider it an Apple "side story", though there are also future Googlers and people who built Android. Here's the trailer: ▶ this video I found it interesting. There is a bit of hagiography going on, though (and note the trailer seems way more antagonistic towards Sculley than the documentary actually is.) One thing I found striking is that none of these people seem to need or care about money. They say so explicitly, "we didn't care about the money", and that it was all about the vision and passion. Yet somehow they managed to remain clothed and well fed. If that's not the definition of privilege, I don't know what is!

I recently read the story of the Magic Link: link > When General Magic finally shipped in 1994 — under the threat of Apple’s Newton — they hadn’t made the Pocket Crystal that Porat first dreamed of in 1989. Instead, they released something they called the Sony Magic Link. It weighed 1.5 lbs (0.68 kg) and was priced at US$800 (US$1560 in 2022 dollars). It offered futuristic features like a touchscreen, downloadable apps and animated emojis — the first of its kind. Fadell thought it would be revolutionary — people could now carry a personal computer with them wherever they went. But nobody bought it. In the end only three to four thousand Magic Link devices were sold, and mostly to family and friends. There's a documentary too: ▶ this video