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General Magic. Probably the most important company in… | by Bret Waters | Medium

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D epending on how old you are, you may think of the important companies in Silicon Valley history as including Fairchild Semiconductor, or HP, or Apple, Netscape, or maybe Google. But there’s one company from Silicon Valley history that very few people have ever heard of despite its outsized influence on nearly everything we touch today. In 1990, a group of technologists founded a company called General Magic to create what today we would call a smartphone. In 1990 desktop computers were in widespread use (but with no internet yet) and cellular telephones were being used for some voice conversations. The founders of General Magic envisioned a future when those things would come together into a single device. CEO Marc Porat described the imaginary device: “A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewelry brings. It will have a perceived value even when it’s not being used… Once you u

“A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewelry brings” General Magic Probably the most important company in Silicon Valley history that you’ve never heard of. Bret Waters 3 min read · Nov 7, 2019 -- 1 Listen Share D epending on how old you are, you may think of the important companies in Silicon Valley history as including Fairchild Semiconductor, or HP, or Apple, Netscape, or maybe Google. But there’s one company from Silicon Valley history that very few people have ever heard of despit

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