While the third season of the science fiction seriesFor All Mankindhas just arrived in the Apple TV+ catalog, certain scenes from the series have caught the eye of connoisseurs of the Apple brand. Indeed, since the beginning of the series, the characters have been immersed in a parallel world, a sort of variant of the 90s.
In order to best represent this era, the producers of the series are careful not to include devices, particularly electronic ones, which did not yet exist on the supposed date of the episode. This is how we see the different characters communicating with each other with the help of a very old Apple device: a Newton MessagePad.
This device, seen by some as the distant ancestor of the iPad, was designed by Apple in 1993. The idea was to make a portable Macintosh, then Apple's most popular product. Very present in the seriesFor All Mankind, the Newton is an iconic product from the Cupertino company which is the symbol of an era.
A Newton capable of making FaceTime calls
But the producers of the series wanted to go further than this simple nostalgic nod. In order to also stay in tune with the times, the different characters in the series regularly make video calls with each other, using a Newton. A technologically questionable choice, but which allows the viewer to stay in a world worthy of the 90s, while having a touch of novelty.
According to Ben McGinnis, one of the producers of the series, the teams in charge of the sets were forced to design a special iPhone case,taking up the features of a Newton. Once installed, the illusion was perfect. During editing, the image of the video was deliberately degraded to give a more aged effect and thus give the idea of aFaceTimestammering in the early 90s.
