Scully oversold the Newton idea to the extent that the MessagePad 110 seemed inept. By the time the 2100 was released, the Newton brand was sullied enough to ensure its transformative ideas would not take hold. We settled for a decade of calendar/address book PDAs and incremental laptop evolution, to arrive somewhere in the same neighborhood as the 2100.
Mac OS X, iPods, and iPhones seem to be evidence that Apple and Jobs overcame the need for revolutionary, high-risk-high-reward leaps in favor of ratcheted, stepwise refinement that draws the market toward the same location in design space without risking quarter-after-quarter of red ink, product shortages, blown deadlines and vaporware saviors. I don't think it's a coincidence that the underlying software is (openly code-named) "Darwin".
Can't disagree with you regarding Scully, either… which is probably part and parcel why Jobs has never deviated from pre-announcing only when the products were completed, just not shipping.
Re: Darwin specifically, Apple actually owns (or used to own) mammals.org, well before the acquisition of NeXT. That type of reference is definitely an Apple thing.
Mac OS X, iPods, and iPhones seem to be evidence that Apple and Jobs overcame the need for revolutionary, high-risk-high-reward leaps in favor of ratcheted, stepwise refinement that draws the market toward the same location in design space without risking quarter-after-quarter of red ink, product shortages, blown deadlines and vaporware saviors. I don't think it's a coincidence that the underlying software is (openly code-named) "Darwin".