Here’s a super-interesting presentation (embedded below) by the late Steve Jobs from the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen. One of the most fascinating clips is around the 25 minute mark. The late Apple CEO talks about his vision for computing, saying that he believes Apple products of the future will be small, book-sized computers that are easy to use and connected to other computers. Keep in mind that this was in 1983 — way before the iPad and the Internet became the major forces that they are today. Here’s quote:
Apple’s strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes. That’s what we want to do and we want to do it this decade. And we really want to do it with a radio link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases and other computers.
While Jobs was on the money about tablet computing and the Internet being the future, he was wrong about the timing. He thought it would happen much sooner. After the quote above, he was extolling the Lisa, which in retrospect was one of Apple’s biggest flops. All that aside, it’s kind of nuts that the roots of the iPad go back that far and it’s impressive how prescient Jobs was in 19-80-frickin’-3.
When you have a chance, give the presentation and the Q&A session a listen. It’s good stuff and I’d love to hear your take on it.
Source via The Next Web
He might have been talking about laptops.
The first laptops were around by then already, but weren’t marketed for another year or 2. However, I do remember a friend of mine having one of the OG iBooks and thinking about how similar it was to the computer-book Penny had on Inspector Gadget.
He could have been, but I don’t think any of the PowerBooks released in that time period fit into his vision. As far as a computer that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes, iOS is more like that than any version of Mac OS. On a side note, the iBook doesn’t fit in the timeline he was talking about. I actually reviewed the first one for Computer Shopper.
My bad, that got kinda convoluted.
The iBook thing was an anecdote/tangent that I remembered. I wasn’t trying to place it in the timeline. It’s friggin’ awesome you got to review the first on though.
However, now that it’s in the mix… maybe that vision never truly realized until he got re-hired by his own company in which he got fired from shortly after making the statements in question. Possibly not, but food for thought.
It’s just when I hear “an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you”, I hear “laptop”. Especially since you open and close them like books.
When I hear “and learn how to use in 20 minutes”… I hear a sales phrase that made sense in a different way back then. A GUI interface back then was MUCH easier to use (as you know) than anything else before it. So saying “learn how to use in 20 minutes” could mean the same as “learn it a HELL of alot faster”.