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Interview with John Scully
worm eater writes "CNet news has an interesting interview with John Scully, CEO of Apple back in the day. He talks about problems and potential in the computer industry, and expresses regret over the opportunities Apple missed with some key technologies -- such as HyperCard and the Newton."
Both HyperCard and the Newton were innovative, influential, and as is often the case, poorly timed relative to technology trends.
HyperCard: here was a programming and publishing framework designed to be approachable and usable by every-day people, with the added bonus of "immediate gratification"- the act of writing code immediately produced a tangible artifact, much like writing HTML today immediately produces a web page that anybody can visit. But, HyperCard predated widespread Internet usage and the Web, and nobody could figure out what it was good for (except fancy slide shows and choose-your-own-adventure style storyboards).
Newton: to be sure, the Newton borrowed heavily from previous projects and products (including stuff from Xerox PARC and Marc Weiser's ubiquitous computing vision). But, once again, Apple innovated. The device was (almost) powerful enough to run useful software while disconnected, the UI was pen-driven, and the device was energy concious enough to be usable throughout the day without docking it for recharging. Here was a physical appliance targetted towards being a useful digital assistant, and here was a computing model radically different than desktop PCs that everybody was used to. Unfortunately, mobile processors weren't fast or energy-miserly enough yet, handwriting recognition was poor and graffiti-like techniques weren't there, the device was the wrong form factor, and a bunch of stuff was thrown in there that wasn't useful (like the "soup" programming paradigm).
Tons of innovation, tons of influence, but before their time and hence market failures.
So the Newton I had with the PC serial cable and the PC syncing software ws what now? The Newton could sync with a PC just fine. Id say the failing of the Newton is due mainly to missinformation from people who never used the product.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
While I wouldn't call Sculley an asshole, Apple's boom years during Sculley's tenure as CEO were the result of projects conceived and decisions made before he became CEO. He got to enjoy the fruits of the Macintosh, the Laserwriter, PageMaker, etc. He milked these markets for what they were worth at the expense of moving Apple into new markets (like the doomed "Star Trek" project, MacOS on PCs). He was a mediocre leader at Apple. Michael Spindler, and to a lesser extent, Gil Amelio are the ones that killed Apple.