Without the Newton, the Palm Pilot might not have come to be and wouldn't have been key to showing that an item the size of a phone could be a small computer. Then-CEO John Sculley took a lot of blame for the MessagePad, but ironically the Newton effort was probably his best decision. The MessagePad was similar: It too was ahead of its time, and it delivered less than promised - at a high price, to boot. Six years later, many of us have forgotten this point. It probably was, but very quickly it redefined the notion of a smartphone and transformed the mobile industry. We saw the same phenomenon play out with the iPhone, which was derided by many early critics as incomplete and overpriced. Unfortunately, the Newton was also too big to fit in a pocket. Still, it presaged the notion of the portable information appliance it's easy to forget the iconic Palm Pilot most people think of as the first PDA debuted four years later. It was very innovative, featuring handwriting recognition, a technology that even today is often inexact - and became the butt of many jokes, especially once cartoonist Garry Trudeau satirized it in his "Doonesbury" comic strip. I've been playing with my original Apple MessagePad, the Newton OS-based 1993 personal digital assistant (remember PDAs?) that Apple launched to polarized reviews. The newly released Steve Jobs biopic reminded me of both how far mobile has come and how the fundamentals last a long time. But I don't believe the innovation is over. I do believe we're in a technology pause after several years of unprecedented rapid innovations. Apple has been criticized hard, and the latest rumors that it's resorting to a gold color option for the upcoming new iPhone typically come with the commentary of "what else can it change today other than the color of the case?" Samsung, having explored pretty much every possible size for a smartphone, has taken similar critiques. There's a lot of talk today about the lack of innovation in mobile and how the once-vibrant market is stagnating because not much more can be done.
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