Hype

I loved using my Newton MessagePad. As much for what it could do as for what it represented — it was tomorrow. The day when a portable computing device would be really, truly portable, small enough to be carried in a pocket (almost). We're there now — or here — of course, but it all seemed much further away. This was more than a decade ago, when the desktop computer I was using at work had a processor not quite as powerful as the one in my iPhone.

In fact, I loved my MessagePad so much that when it was discontinued, I spent close to $1000 on a second model, out of concern that they might become difficult to replace in the years to come. (I tried using a Palm Pilot — smaller, closer to pocket-sized — but it seemed inelegant by comparison.) I didn't know then that years later, I would give it up when I left work to be a stay-at-home parent. There were no projects to keep track of, or schedules to follow, and what time I had for reading was lost, once I wasn't commuting by train.

The MessagePad is — mostly, I think, to people who never had the chance to use one — largely thought of as a failure. It was introduced as a revolutionary product with extraordinary capabilities (particularly handwriting recognition), but the initial models (which had been plagued with problems during development) were never able to deliver on that promise. In the end, it had become a powerful and very capable device (the handwriting recognition was never all that good, though the print recognition was greatly improved), but it was a product that was several years too soon, and it was never able to overcome the failure to meet expectations.

Even if you don't obsessively follow Apple, you've probably heard that the company is about to introduce a new product (in just about five more minutes as I write this), almost certainly a sort of tablet computer. Apple is famously, notoriously secret about new products before they're introduced (often with good reason), but that leaves a vacuum of information — and I'm wary that the hype and speculation surrounding this device have raised expectations so high that nothing that will be unveiled today could possibly hope to meet them.

Since I do obsessively follow Apple, if you'll kindly excuse me...