Chances are that you’ve never heard of General Magic, but in Silicon Valley the company is the stuff of legend. Magic spun out of Apple in 1990 with much of the original Mac team on board and a bold new product idea: a handheld gadget that they called a “personal communicator.” Plugged into a telephone jack, it could handle e-mail, dial phone numbers, and even send SMS- like instant messages—complete with emoji and stickers. It had an app store stocked with downloadable games, music, and programs that could do things like check stock prices and track your expenses. It could take photos with an (optional) camera attachment. There was even a prototype with a touch screen that could make cellular calls and wirelessly surf the then- embryonic web. In other words, General Magic pulled the technological equivalent of a working iPhone out of its proverbial hat—a decade before Apple started working on the real thing. Shortly thereafter, General Magic itself vanished.

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"Andy Hertzfeld: Basically Marc convinced John Sculley to not only let us spin out from Apple but also to help us convince Sony and Motorola that they should join Apple in trying to create this new standard. We called it 'the Alliance.'"

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"Andy Hertzfeld: And as soon as the Magic Link came out I gave one to Steve."

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Marc Porat: Apple, Motorola, Sony: So now we had the three board members as licensees, who were the core of the founding partners.

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"Marc Porat: Andy and Bill demoed a Magic machine, which was in a format like an iPhone, and they said, “So this is what we are going to ship next. It is a phone, and you can see all the Magic Link icons on it, and let me show you how it works.” They go through contact the manager, the telephone, sending e-mails… the works. That was iPhone form factor and that was iOS functionality in 1995. We were very excited about it, and they said that this is the next thing that we are going to do. That was for 1997."

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"Megan Smith: There was this group at Apple that apprenticed with Steve Jobs, Woz, Mike Markkula, and all that crew, and learned. And then at General Magic they became the wizards and then we’re the apprentices. Phil Goldman and Zarko and Tony, Amy—we were the junior group to this senior group."

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"Amy Lindburg: Everything came out of General Magic like just a big explosion."

"Michael Stern: iPhones, social media, electronic commerce, it all came out of Magic. That’s the story."