However, since they are intrinsically communications products, a great deal of the intelligence can be placed up in the network, at the other end of the communication link to the appliance. Television is the first viable delivery vehicle for information appliances. Because of its ubiquity, and the telephone's, in the homes of consumers, it is very practical to create a device that uses the former for display, the latter for communication. Perhaps more important, the television set is already the mainstream method of choice for receiving information, though not yet for interacting with it. Eventually, other information appliances will become practical.
Cellular phones are a great vehicle for information access.
They cannot provide the high-bandwidth display of the television set, but they do offer the clear advantage of portability. As the cellular telephone becomes more and more of a consumer product, it will also become more and more of a candidate for an information appliance. Calif. He started his career at Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, Calif., where he was the creator and co-designer of MultiFinder, a program that allowed Macintosh users to run more than one program at a time. In 1990, he joined General Magic Inc., where he created the Magic Cap operating system.