Filed under: Humor, Software, Odds and ends, Apple
Found Footage: Knowledge Navigator concept from 1987
Remember back when Apple made concept videos of their future hardware instead of people making concepts for them? I actually don't, but that's just because I'm a young punk -- the last major official concept video I remember seeing was the old (and somewhat prescient) "You Will" commercials. But on the eve of what already seems like the year of the tablet, here's a retro look at a 1987 video made by Apple featuring the "Knowledge Navigator," a tablet-style computer with web access (sorry, "university network access" -- the web didn't exist yet) and personified software agents to search, field calls, and even run apps and simulations.
Good stuff -- I doubt we'll see video clips of bowtied male secretaries answering calls from the iPhone if the tablet should appear later this month, but here in this future time of 2010, it's fun to look back and see what we thought we'd be doing now: asking favors from Jill Gilbert, taking Kathy to the airport by 2, and ignoring calls from Mom.
[Via DF]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michael Kaye said 3:11PM on 1-02-2010
wow I've been looking for this ever since being shown this at an Apple event circa 1989??? Great find.
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John said 2:59PM on 1-02-2010
If we could just get that darn folding screen thing figured out...
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Greg said 3:25PM on 1-02-2010
They got the video calling with built-in webcam right! Before the internets...
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Mkimble1 said 3:30PM on 1-02-2010
I remember watching this video in Chicago when I went to an Apple service training event back in either 1999 or 2000 before the release of OS X. They also showed a video with Harry Anderson talking about disability services and "electronic" curb cuts and a pre-release video of where they were going with next step OS. The curb cuts video was very interesting in that it talked about how some disability services actually had he unintended consequence of benefiting people without the disability. In one case, how visually impaired services benefit people in DTP and illustration by allowing zoom to precisely control pixel by pixel editing or placement of text and graphics. The curb cut analogy referred to how the America with Disabilities Act mandate curb cuts in sidewalks to allow wheel chair access to streets. This in turn had the unintended benefit of helping mothers with strollers, people with shopping carts, cyclists, the elderly, etc. I'd love to "find" that video again.
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David Robison said 4:14PM on 1-02-2010
Great point. Just don't forget, sometimes dads push strollers too (even though they're not so ergonomically correct for us taller folks).
AGS said 3:51PM on 1-02-2010
seems like every year a new post about this thing
yet every year it looks more dated, although more possible
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Rego said 3:54PM on 1-02-2010
If Apple introduces a tablet that is capable of doing what was depicted in the video, plus every iPhone capability, it looks like a winner!
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Howard Price said 3:59PM on 1-02-2010
HP built off Apple's Knowledge Navigator vision with a concept of their own simply entitled "1995". If you watch the two back to back you see the very obvious influence that Apple had on HP's "vision".. HP's concept is built around their failed New Wave operating environment which Apple sued them over around the time that this video was produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfBLcx1GTU
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Howard Price said 5:46PM on 1-02-2010
I always get caught by YT's 10 min limit.
Here's a playlist with the HP video in 2 parts.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=32D59B9340D00326
John said 6:31PM on 1-02-2010
The HP "concept" still looked like Windows (which still looks like the Apple IIGS UI), still required typing in commands and dates, and overall, showed how little real inventiveness there is in the non-Mac world. Some things never change.
Howard Price said 7:07PM on 1-02-2010
It was the OSF desktop on top of HP-UX with a bunch of New Wave widgets tossed in for good measure. Neither of which ever went mainstream. I think. OSF might still be used on some UX based workstations.
Cameron said 8:27PM on 1-02-2010
Little known fact, Jim Shasky (a truly talented man that I'm honored to have had the privilege to have studied under) and his (now defunct) production company, Creative License/SkyBird Productions, created this video as well as many others for Apple. As interesting as the ideas portrayed in the video are, the technical hurdles that the production team overcame in creating this are just as remarkable for their time.
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Soup said 8:52PM on 1-02-2010
If they could take those features and throw them into the next gen iphone, give it a bigger screen, faster processor, multitasking, and make it the first wimax phone in america it'd be the biggest thing to hit the US since the revolution.
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Mickey Sattler said 5:45AM on 1-03-2010
OMFG! Ha! I worked at GO/EO on the "You Will" device!
That was a fabulous time. What with that and the Newton in my pocket,
Imaginethe iPhone without any outside infrastructure. Fail, but not for lack of trying.
Thanks for the blast from the past.
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Bea said 9:24AM on 1-03-2010
Pretty neat! But...When did Brazil take over all of South America?
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BG said 3:42PM on 1-26-2010
Didn't Apple produce a similar concept video with a gentleman in the park using a similar device that was assisting him to learn to read? As I recall, after he finished his reading session, the device asked him what he would like to read next, and scanned a newspaper he placed against the display...
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Llib Setag said 5:37PM on 1-26-2010
Notice in the video the "predictions" for deforestation in the year 2010?!!!
Hmmmmm....
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JC said 10:02PM on 1-31-2010
2010!
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