Steve and his Sony Magic Link - Day 4
10/4/94This report by no means intends to be a complete comparison of the Sony Magic Link against the Apple Newton. This is just a report of what I am currently feeling after using the Sony Magic Link for 4 days. I will try and refrain from technical details and focus on what I feel about this unit.
Background: I've used a Newton for 1 year now and have developed software for the Newton. I've used the OMP Newton and have had it upgraded to a Newton MP 100. I use a 2MB flash RAM card in my Newton and an Apple NiCad Battery pack.
Let me start off by saying that the Sony Magic Link (SML from now on) has replaced my Newton, as much as I love my Newton. Now, I'll talk about the good things and the bad things about the SML.
Please read this report all the way through, since I'll talk about the hardware first and then get into the usage and philosophy of the device.
The Sony Magic Link with General Magic's Magic Cap and Telescript software is a pretty neat tool. It is by far no means perfect, but it looks like a step forward in the PDA/Personal Communicator world.
The SML has two distinct components. One is the software from General Magic. The other is the delivery of the hardware, which is from Sony.
HARDWARE: ---------
The SML is slightly heavier than the Newton and is a bit larger. I don't mind this, since I feel these devices should have bigger screens, not smaller, because I like bandwidth and hate squinting.
The SML's screen is horrible. Its larger than the Newton screen, and is in landscape mode. Its 2 bit, so you get nicer textures then on a Newton, but the glare is horrendous and the contrast is horrible. This screen cries for backlighting much more than any Newton I've used.
The feel in the hand is OK. Being a landscape device, you won't use it like you do a Newton, but I find it easy to hold in one hand and operate with the other. A person with weaker or smaller hands may not find it so accomodating.
The controls/ports on the unit consist of an IR port for beaming, a AC jack, a slot for the backup battery, a slot for the main battery pack, an on button (which is a little hard to use) a contrast dial (handy because the screen is so bad), a pen (spring loaded, kind of like the Newton, except the pen is one solid piece), a PCMCIA slot and a bay with a Magic Port and a TeleCom port.
The main batteries can either be 6 AAA alkalines or a $70 Sony Lithium/ION battery. Despite the price, I highly reccomend the Sony battery. In 2+ days of heavy use, including 90 emails sent back and forth over the internal modem, the battery was still at 60% full. I don't have enough data to determine how long it takes to recharge, though the battery will not suffer memory effects from random charging sessions.
As with every General Magic based device there is a built in 2400 baud data/9600 baud fax modem.
Because the Magic Link is, as Bill Atkinson put it, "the phone meets GUI," you can buy a headset that is basically one half of those tiny Sony headphones that just stick in your ear, with a mike 5 inches down the cord. This device, which sells for $60, turns your SML into a full fledged phone. I'm still waiting for my headset to come in.
The Sony 1MB Ram card is $200, not surprising since Newtons RAM cards were expensive at day one. Only SRAM cards will work and they have to be TTY compliant I think. The Apple Newton 1 MB SRAM card DOES work, so for $50, you can add much needed RAM.
The case, while minimal, is kinda nice and even has a built in stand for setting the SML on the desk. This helps with THS (the horrible screen) when in use at the desk.
The screen can be used with a finger or a pen, and I prefer the finger for most things. It works well! The only drawback is my oily fingers and constant cleaning of the screen.
SOFTWARE --------
This is where the unit shines, with a few exceptions.
As I said earlier, Sony and General Magic call these things Personal Communicators, and they are.
Out of the box, it takes 30 minutes to go through the Getting Started book, which is MUCH better than the original Newton Getting Started. You learn how to enter text via the onscreen keyboard, which is quite usable, personalize your SML, it generates a RSA encryption key for you, and then you are asked if you want to sign up for AT&T's PersonaLink service.
Definately sign up. For at least 6 months (I hope forever) the service is $9.95 a month, gives unlimited email AND a 1-800 number! I like the sounds of that.
Once on email, you can send mail to just about anyone with the SML.
OK, there are so many things that this report will not do justice to the software.
DATA ENTRY/NAMES ----------------
On the SML you use an onscreen keyboard. There is no built in handwriting recognition, but rumors say that third parties, such as Palm Computing, are working on addons to provide levels of HWR.
Data entry is much better than on the Newton. For the names file, you'll get dialogs which have claravoyant capabilities that fill out data for you. Lets say I had entered a friend into the SML that lived in Cupertino earlier. Upon entering a new Cupertinoite, As soon as I type 'Cu' into the City field, the SML bleeps and fills out the rest, selecting 'pertino' I can continue to type or just press the Next button.
But wait! if that was not cool enough, the zip is already filled in, with, get this, the last two digits selected, since they are the ones that generally change within a zip code area! Simply brilliant.
Its little things like this that make the SML a joy to use. Be sure to see my "bad things" list though, because the unit isn't perfect.
Unlike the Newton, which has a rigid set of fields for its names program, the SML has the concept of stamps. You can stamp ten home addresses onto Liz's card, one for each ex-husband! Three work numbers? No problem! You do have to know a little shortcut to change the labels for the stamps, but that comes with time.
As a sidenote, the software designers tried to make it easy to use without power features. There is, though, an option button on the unit that lets the knowledgable get to shortcuts and power tools.
Selecting names is fast, too. Unlike Newton, which builds a list of names, the SML breaks its names down into index cards with tabs across the top for ABC, DEF, etc. A click on a tab, then a click on the name and you're done. It seems much faster than my Newton, but I don't have all the data in yet.
The SML names program also has groups. The group card has a name, and an Add button to add people to your group. The Newton does not have this. But another cool feature is stamp association. Lets say you see the 8-ball stamp and stamp it on Andrew's card, because he plays pool with you and several others. You then make a group called "Pool Players" and start to add their names via the Add button. But wait! If you take the 8-Ball stamp and drag it onto the group face icon in the top left of the group card, your SML will automatically add all people who have the 8-Ball stamp on their card!! Now, any time in the future, just by adding the 8-Ball stamp to Jane Smith will add her to the Pool Players group! Pretty neat in my book.
MORE STAMPS! ------------
You can stamp Internet addresses, Compuserve addresses, FAX numbers, SkyTel pager numbers, PersonaLink numbers, etc. Other stamps include MIDI Songs, Animations, graphics, etc. Stamps can have smarts behind them as we saw earlier.
PHONE -----
As I said, this puppy is a phone. You click on the phone and dial a number. If using the headset, you can log the time of the call, enter notes in (which get linked to the names card later) etc. When done, click Save, enter in the person or company name and you're done!
EMAIL -----
The SML blows the Newton away in this category. I can't even describe it. Lets just say that with more RAM and an interface that will let me use my Mac as a remote input device for my SML, I've got a new EMAIL service.
You have different types of stationery, such as postcards and letters. Selecting recipients is a snap with an easy to use dialog. You can type text, write with ink, stamp stamps, drag on ANYTHING that is draggable (say a notebook sheet) etc. Its really, really cool.
You can apply rules to filing mail into the file cabinet, when to get your mail, etc. You can use rules that look for certain stamps, too!
You can even put a song that plays when the user reads the message!
DATE BOOK ---------
The datebook is pretty nice. Easy to enter, lots of options for meetings, special days like anniversaries, etc. A multi-day can be used for vacations. The weekly view and monthly views are really nice - Much higher bandwidth of information than the Newton.
If you schedule a meeting with people, you have the option to send email to them inviting them to the meeting. If they have Magic Cap, they'll even get Yes and No button on their mail that will reply to you automatically!
The to do items are single depth - no outlines.
The birthday reminder is interesting - No Year. I guess this is because a lot of people don't like to tell you their age. If you want to enter the year, you'd use a normal event.
The alarm is much louder than Newton. I heard it go off when it was in its case, which itself was in a carrying case. The alarm sounded like the normal blee-dee-dee-bleep alarms and went off for 10-20 seconds.
NOTEBOOK --------
The notebook is a simple notepad with any number of pages. There are several types of paper, such as plain, graphing paper, bulleted paper, paper with check boxes, etc. its quite usable.
Pocket Quicken --------------
Pocket Quicken is included and is really, really nice. It won't be as useful as it can be until the cable and link software from Intuit arrives. I have no dates on this.
PenCell SpreadSheet -------------------
I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets so I can't comment, except that its built into ROM.
The hallway? ------------
All of the above, and I stress was not a full desciption of the SML's power by any means, was just at the desk. If you leave your office there is a hallway with doors for games, storage, etc. I assume more doors will show up in future products.
Downtown! ---------
Downtown, by default, has your house, the AT&T PersonaLink center and America OnLine. AOL is not Telescript aware yet, so it kind of lives on its own and isn't too useful. You can only get email, news and stock quotes from AOL. A full client would have been a different story!
As services arrive, you'll have new buildings. For example, Andy Hertzfeld, in a recent demo, had a plane flying around. After walking down the street, we saw this airport tower. Sure enough, it was the entrance to the Official Airline Guide, coming soon to a SML near you!
RAM: ----
The units 1 MB of ram is OK for starters, but with a lot of email (well, 12 saved, but some had digitized voice on them) more names, etc, I quickly ran out. I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but I find it very hard to judge how much ram I have free. Adam Engst's 40K Tidbits newsletter finished the RAM off, but the SML handled it VERY gracefully, showing me items I could throw away, allowing me to clean up, which in this case, freed enough memory to store the article.
The SML, with all of its sounds, animations and communications, really, really (are you reading this Sony) needs a $198 4 MB ram card. End of paragraph.
Crashing: ---------
I've only had one reproducable crash which was the result of Sniffy the dog (the find tool) searching the "Welcome From Sony" email. This is a known problem and tossing the email fixed it. When it crashed, though, the SML told me it was cleaning up and then in a minute I was back at the desk, with a dialog saying that my communicator had experienced difficulties and if this happened again and again, to call Sony.
Rocky and Bullwinkle? ---------------------
One user on the Internet called the interface a "Rocky and Bullwinkle interface." While it will take a lot of heat because its very graphics based, and you "walk" from place to place, there are a lot of shortcuts and I really like the fun atmosphere and easy to use software. I don't think its as bad to use as it looks. The desk is always one tap away.
BAD THINGS ----------
No Undo! --------
There is no Undo in the SML! There is a "revert" feature, but it reverts to the last time the SML saved, which is not obvious. Once I was editing a NoteBook page, went to type BACKSPACE-S, by accident pressed RETURN, which selected the next line of text, then S. This wiped out the line and I could not get it back without reverting a bunch of other changes.
If there is indeed no undo (its not obvious that there is), I find this a major flaw and almost unexcusable.
If someone else knows how to undo the last change, please tell me!
Interface Issues ----------------
The interface is inconsistent. Some things you drag to the trash. Some things have a Discard button. Some things have a Remove button. Some lists have a Clear button. Some lists do not. Some lists let you drag list items out. Some lists do not. Etc, etc.
Are these interface problems major factors? No, not really. But they'll keep my Mom from using this thing because she'd get frustrated.
Summary: --------
I apologize to Sony, General Magic and you if this wasn't very clear - You really need to see a demo to appreciate it.
Will it survive? If General Magic can get more TeleScript servers out there and the Mac and Windows versions of Magic Cap out ASAP, I think they have a good chance at staying around for awhile. Otherwise, people may think its just another PDA.
Is it worth the $899 + $70 + $50 + $60? Only you can say that. I like mine a lot, horrible screen and all.
© Copyright 1997-2002 Steve Riggins. Graphics by Andrew Duncan.
