In May 1990, Bill Atkinson (the creator of HyperCards), Andy Hertzfeld (one of the creators of the Macintosh), and Marc Porat convinced Apple CEO John Sculley to turn an ambitious internal project from Cupertino into an independent company, giving rise to General Magic. One of General Magic's most important developments was Magic Cap, a platform and graphical interface that used the so-called “room metaphor” to offer users an intuitive and easy-to-use environment, even on the compact screens of mobile devices.
One impressive aspect of General Magic was the speed with which it added new partners. From Sony to Motorola, passing through AT&T, Philips and Matsushita (i.e., Panasonic), everyone wanted a special ticket on the General Magic and Apple airplane. The supposed master plan was the creation of a software platform and a personal communications device that could be used anytime, anywhere.
From a technical standpoint, Apple already had a device compatible with that definition thanks to the Newton PDA, although it was limited by the lack of external connections, and only sent messages using an extra accessory.
General Magic's ambition was much bigger: on one hand it had Telescript, a programming language that would allow devices with limited processing power to load small programs or agents onto remote servers, which would handle all the heavy work (essentially an ancestor of the modern cloud). And on the other hand, it had Magic Cap.
Magic Cap: A Demonstration
Magic Cap was, from a certain point of view, the bridge between the end user, Telescript, and the background infrastructure. An operating system and graphical interface inspired by the classic room metaphor that helped locate available services easily. The desktop had one or two drawers depending on the screen size, and through them it was possible to create all kinds of messages and documents.
As messages accumulated, more envelopes appeared on the desktop, and to delete them it was enough to drag each one to the trash truck icon. Sooner or later, the user would leave the 'house' of Magic Cap to visit 'Downtown', where the special services were located. The most prominent (and the only one available in many cases) was AT&T's PersonaLink Center.
The companies linked to Magic Cap launched several compatible devices, with the Sony Magic Link and the Motorola Envoy leading the way, and even a special edition of the software for Windows was seen, but the technical and commercial limitations were too great. The average price of these devices amounted to $1,000, a real fortune in 1994-95, and the few wireless connectivity options were slow, expensive, or both.
In other words, Magic Cap devices lived enslaved to conventional telephone lines, and with a maximum speed of 2,400 bits per second, the overall experience was dreadful. As if that weren't enough, General Magic, Magic Cap and its hardware found themselves competing (and losing) against the Internet itself. Add to that the rise of Palm and the disappearance of the PersonaLink service in 1996, and the platform was orphaned in record time. In summary, Magic Cap was a great idea at the wrong time, far ahead of its time, but at the same time never quite caught the Web train.
