Over at Ars Technica, Jeremy Reimer put together a nice retrospective of Apple’s Newton handheld in celebration of its 30th anniversary. The Newton turned out to be the first in a slew of PDAs released by a variety of companies throughout the 90s. While these companies correctly predicted a future where handheld computers would be ubiquitous, they all made two wrong assumptions: that said future was just around the corner and that the ubiquitous handheld computer was going to be a PDA. Despite some impressive innovation and some truly good products, most PDAs of the 90s failed entirely and those that did succeed had limited appeal. The technology wasn’t quite there yet and more importantly, those who made them hadn’t figured out how most people would even use a handheld computer.

Virtual reality today feels to me a lot like PDAs did in the 90s. There has clearly been a ton of innovation. VR felt like science fiction as recent as a decade ago and yet today there are a number of good VR headsets made from a variety of manufacturers. That said and like PDAs of old, the technology doesn’t seem to be quite there yet and everyone is still trying to figure out how most people will even use VR outside of gaming.

That’s not to dismiss VR. Millions of people love and use their VR headsets just like millions of people in the 90s loved and used their PalmPilots, but using a PDA in the 90s required work. Users had to regularly sync their device with a personal computer. They had to frequently replace non-rechargeable batteries. They even had to learn and practice how to properly input text. The work involved with using a PDA daily in the 90s meant there were no casual users. Owning a PDA either led to becoming an enthusiast or forgetting about it in some junk drawer.

VR arguably requires less work, but has the added hurdle of convincing people, many of which were skeptical of AirPods, to wear goggles. As with early PDAs, these barriers create the same self selection where the only people who buy and evangelize VR headsets are those who are willing to accept these trade offs. Without an insanely compelling use case, these barriers will continue to limit VR to enthusiasts with no clear path towards ubiquity.

Being a product for enthusiasts is not a bad thing. There are many large non-ubiquitous markets that do just fine and even most ubiquitous products started out as something for enthusiasts. Personal computers started in the late 70s and weren’t truly ubiquitous until the internet became mainstream in the 90s. Video games were considered just for children until those children grew up and kept playing them. I would even argue the Mac was mostly an enthusiast market for a period of time.

PDAs never achieved ubiquity. Instead, they were a necessary stepping stone toward smartphones, which themselves weren’t ubiquitous until iPhone and Android¹. I think VR has a bright future, but I don’t see VR as it exists today being the thing that becomes the next smartphone. Rather, I see VR as another necessary and very exciting stepping stone toward something ubiquitous that is yet to come².