First, a thought about the humble (and unbranded) typewriter from March 1905:

“It is a far cry from the monkish calligrapher, working in his cell in silence, to the brisk ‘click, click’ of the modern writing machine, which in a quarter of a century has revolutionized and reformed business. Its introduction marks an era of progress not inferior to that brought about by the telegraph and telephone.” (Scientific American, sub. req. )

Now, some quotes from Apple execs introducing the Apple Newton in 1993:

“We want to show how this technology, which still has a bit of Buck Rogers in it for most of us, will change the world.”

“This is not about shrinking a computer down,” Sculley said. “It’s about making things easier than the things I already think are easy, like the telephone.”

“The Macintosh was a revolution for the desktop. The Newton is a revolution for the pocket,” [said] Sculley.”

“When PDAs become a reality, we’ll be very well positioned,” Sculley asserted. “We’ll make money at every step of the value chain, and so will our third-party developers.”

Ouch. Sometimes it hurts to run ahead of the pack.