One of the several movies that Apple loved to produce in 1987 to inspire and inspire visions of the future he shows a voice assistant.
A prototype that makes it clear how profound the Cupertino company's perspective speculations were. The voice assistant in this Apple video from 1987 is a sort of Siri in its embryonic state, 25 years before the official one. From a device halfway between a tablet and a foldable mobile phone, the voice assistant managed appointments, searches and calls also counting on a front webcam.
All of this was the Knowledge Navigator.
To give you a little taste of the company's foresight, I'll put below a photo of Apple's most futuristic model in 1987, fresh from conception.
That's right, it's Newton, the unfortunate grandfather of the iPhone. A handheld that showed how far ahead the mind of the bitten (and at the time multicolored) apple was, too much for the time.
Consider voice search (25 years earlier). Multi-touch (20 years before), ultra-thin (22 years before) and color screens (10 years for LEDs, 11 for OLEDs).
A crystal ball? A mage? In spite of the vulgar that attributes visionary talent only to Steve Jobs, it must be said that in 1987 the lion's share was John Sculley Yes, that was the first year of an Apple without its founder, obsessed with the future (as you see successfully) but unable to keep your feet on the ground by designing real, contemporary, practical devices.
In a few years Sculley would have brought the apple to the brink of the abyss before the welcome return of the "prodigal son" Jobs, who in the meantime had created Next and Pixar.
As for the web connection, that's the only easy prediction. The video rides on an imminent revolution: the first internet contracts in the US would have been sold two years later, in 1989.
Moral of the story? It's not enough to think about things first: you also need to think about them well, at the right time and focused on the user experience.
