Movie review: General Magic

★★☆☆☆ 2018, 92 minutes General Magic was a company started in 1990 by some of ex-Apple staffers, working on a pocket communication device and its operating system (Magic Cap, sporting a fascinating room user interface). The product launched in 1994, but swiftly failed in the market, similarly to and concurrently with its chief competitor, Apple Newton. Many alumni of the company – including Megan Smith, Kevin Lynch, Tony Fadell, and Pierre Omidyar – ended up having successful careers in tech after that, to a point that General Magic is referred to as “Fairchild Semiconductor of the 1990s.” The eponymous documentary, released in 2018, was disappointing to me. Sure, it is well-edited, and particularly shines owing to a lot of archival footage shot during General Magic’s happy years. Unfortunately, we get to see none of the sort of details I was hoping to see: no pre-release interface or hardware, no discussion of product nuances, no solid reflection on the company, the culture, or the…