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The ad doesn't show me how the device works, there's just a person talking and making promises. I guess the device's resolution and contrast are so low and it l

The ad doesn't show me how the device works, there's just a person talking and making promises. I guess the device's resolution and contrast are so low and it looks a bit underwhelming in general that they didn't go with that first...

evo1 2mo ago
About 2 minutes in they start showing the device being used and it's interface.
dofm 2mo ago
The display was really impressive for the era, resistive touch, backlit etc.; this is two years before the Palm Pilot launched. Most people would not have thought "underwhelming", and displays no better than that were commonplace in really popular devices for the next five years, including in the Palm V and Vx. The problem these early smartphones had with their audience was lack of precedent. The Newton launched the year before but almost nobody would have seen them in the wild. Maybe geeky people had seen the Tandy/Casio Zoomer in print ads or Radio Shack. Devices of this kind that launched after people started seeing Palm Pilots everywhere had an easier time. That, I think, is why it is sold the way it is in this ad; few people would have had any reason to know how they worked or what they could offer, so "features-first" advertising would not really have reached a wide enough market. This kind of advertising was really commonplace for computers.
- pavlov 2mo ago
  It’s even worse than nobody having seen the Newton: it was actively ridiculed in the press, so a lot of people had never seen it but knew it as a joke. This was a time when newspaper comic strips were still culturally influential because they were syndicated in newspapers across the US. Doonesbury spent several strips making fun of the Newton: https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/319/1714 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/...
  - dofm 2mo ago
    One of the more interesting corners of history is the Palm guys settling on honesty as a reaction to that. You make a system that can do enough that you can teach users to meet it in the middle, and you don't pretend it is magic. PalmOS and Graffiti in particular is a rare example of tech literally not pretending it is more magical than it actually is. It could do what it claimed, with high accuracy, you had to learn how to use it but it was not burdensome. And with the rest of the Palm Pilot, everyone knew they were carrying around a finely balanced device; useful enough, insane battery life, friendly. One of the high water marks of tech culture in that decade.
  - reaperducer 2mo ago
    it was actively ridiculed in the press "Eat up, Martha!" /ob Simpsons
flohofwoe 2mo ago
I suspect it was rather the combination of cost (around $1000 1990's dollars), weight (>500g) and battery time (apparently only 30 minutes) which was the problem. > and it looks a bit underwhelming in general ...only from today's perspective.
- archonis 2mo ago
  Don't forget size. Didn't reasonably fit in any non coat/jacket pocket.

evo1 2mo ago

About 2 minutes in they start showing the device being used and it's interface.

dofm 2mo ago

The display was really impressive for the era, resistive touch, backlit etc.; this is two years before the Palm Pilot launched. Most people would not have thought "underwhelming", and displays no better than that were commonplace in really popular devices for the next five years, including in the Palm V and Vx. The problem these early smartphones had with their audience was lack of precedent. The Newton launched the year before but almost nobody would have seen them in the wild. Maybe geeky people had seen the Tandy/Casio Zoomer in print ads or Radio Shack. Devices of this kind that launched after people started seeing Palm Pilots everywhere had an easier time. That, I think, is why it is sold the way it is in this ad; few people would have had any reason to know how they worked or what they could offer, so "features-first" advertising would not really have reached a wide enough market. This kind of advertising was really commonplace for computers.

pavlov 2mo ago
It’s even worse than nobody having seen the Newton: it was actively ridiculed in the press, so a lot of people had never seen it but knew it as a joke. This was a time when newspaper comic strips were still culturally influential because they were syndicated in newspapers across the US. Doonesbury spent several strips making fun of the Newton: https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/319/1714 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/...
- dofm 2mo ago
  One of the more interesting corners of history is the Palm guys settling on honesty as a reaction to that. You make a system that can do enough that you can teach users to meet it in the middle, and you don't pretend it is magic. PalmOS and Graffiti in particular is a rare example of tech literally not pretending it is more magical than it actually is. It could do what it claimed, with high accuracy, you had to learn how to use it but it was not burdensome. And with the rest of the Palm Pilot, everyone knew they were carrying around a finely balanced device; useful enough, insane battery life, friendly. One of the high water marks of tech culture in that decade.
- reaperducer 2mo ago
  it was actively ridiculed in the press "Eat up, Martha!" /ob Simpsons

flohofwoe 2mo ago

I suspect it was rather the combination of cost (around $1000 1990's dollars), weight (>500g) and battery time (apparently only 30 minutes) which was the problem. > and it looks a bit underwhelming in general ...only from today's perspective.

archonis 2mo ago
Don't forget size. Didn't reasonably fit in any non coat/jacket pocket.