Fax on the beach: The audacious, visionary, calamitous iPad of the 90s

Re:Fax on the beach: The audacious, visionary, calamitous iP... by beamatronic on Monday February 10, 2020 @11:30PM (#22296071)

I had a Handspring Visor. They were pretty trendy in 1999-2000. My friend had the Ricochet cellular modem and we were jealous he could get email on it. But there were apps similar to Yelp with databases of restaurant reviews. It would sync in the cradle, attached to your PC, to get the latest data over the Internet. Imagine an iPod touch with no radios.

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Re:Fax on the beach: The audacious, visionary, calamitous iP... by npunt on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @05:13PM (#22303510)

Yeah these devices did check some boxes for various features and capabilities, and as a late 90s tech geek I wanted one badly because they were clearly 'the future', but the fit & finish in the UX just wasn't there for breakout success. That was largely a function of the state of hardware.

I also had a pseudo-iPhone experience with my Treo in 2005-07, with an add-on bluetooth GPS and various apps for MP3s etc. It did the job in a way, but it was clunky, and the web experience was subpar to say the least. But it was a sign of things to come.

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Re:Fax on the beach: The audacious, visionary, calamitous iP... by ghaff on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @07:54AM (#22298055)

Trendy is a good word for it. I won mine at some trade show raffle and I know lots of tech folks who all wanted one during a certain period. However I also remember that, among other things, the cradle sync requirement made them not really all that terribly useful. Mine became drawer-ware after a while and I don't think that was all that unusual.

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