WinCE / Pocket PC / Windows Mobile was FAR more powerful (multitasking etc.) than contemporary Palm / Symbian devices / versions. The only exception was around the Tungsten T3 with its lovely high-res screen, which ALMOST made me switch from Pocket PC (I used an iPaq 3660 back then) to Palm.
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Apple Discontinued the Newton 25 Years Ago Today
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I only had the iiixe, but used it for years. A month on two AAA batteries was great.
I had a Newton 2000, gave it up in favour of the much less portable IBM Transnote tablet convertible type thing.
The Transnote may have necessitated a bag, but I didn't need to concentrate so hard on writing in a manner that would be legible to the software. I could take notes a heck of a lot faster as a result.
The Transnote may have necessitated a bag, but I didn't need to concentrate so hard on writing in a manner that would be legible to the software. I could take notes a heck of a lot faster as a result.
I used my Newton 120 for work (I worked in the field) and it was great to not need a notepad and pen which I’d lose somewhere inevitably. The death of the Newton (ironically taken out in the aftermath of an accident involving gravity - it fell off as table) was a very sad day as they were long defunct by then. A succession of so-so Palm devices followed and like you say, the iPad is the spiritual successor (for me) to the Newton.
It was, and I had a Jornada, iPaq, and Treo with it but the interface was a mess. MS tried to bring Windows to a small screen and it just didn't work.
I bought a Newton when they were introduced in the early 90's when PDA's were all the rage. The handwriting wasn't very good.
You have the order reversed because the Newton predated PDAs like the Pilot by several years.
Newton 1992 (Development began 1987/88)
Palm Pilot 1996
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Apple is doing really well now; times have changed.
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I didn't ever own one, but the first time I saw one it was an enchanting experience, the promise being more important than the reality of the tech of that time. pretty much the same as the 512K Macintosh, though the thing was a beast and could do DTP 24/7 and do things you'd never even considered possible before.
Yep, prior to the Palm Pilot I was carrying around a Franklin Planner. While I had a ton of information with me I was still missing meetings, (no cell phone alarms to remind me, and an analog watch), and if I ever lost the planner all my notes would have been gone with it, so I went to the Palm. Now I had alarms and backups on my PC of everything. As you mentioned with a foldable/portable keyboard I was light years ahead of everyone else.
It’s a shame no one at the local school district was smart enough to show people how to use them. They missed out of being ahead of technology. As for wireless communications, I use to connect my Palm to my StarTech for email and AvantGo. Later I was able to browse the web with my Visor. Wasn’t the most practical thing, but then again it was ~2001 and didn’t need to spend a dime other than the serial cable needed.
It’s amazing what you can do with an old Newton and cordless hole punch (1911). 😂 Ironically 112 years later and the 1911 is still going strong. Some things never go out of style. 😎
The newton's hand writing rec is far better than Siri....It's successor is Siri's speech recognition.
I bought a later model Palm when the prices fell (clear blue plastic! ooooh, ahhh) and I agree with you. Lack of wireless internet at the time was a huge handicapped for these things. You had to dock them where you could hook it up to a modem.... which was probably dial up.
In the end, my old school Franklin Covey Planner never got replaced and was faster and more efficient paired with Outlook which was archaic at the time by today's standards.
I think today's VR/AR is similiar.... it's the foreshadowing of amazing advances in tech that will be life changing at a societal level like the smart phone.... just not yet. 10 years later when the iPhone came out, even in its first iteration, look at how leaps and bounds more advanced it was over a PDA.
Pocket PC was also a huge failure ahead of it's time and not quite there yet.
Microsoft really should have been the leader in tablets and touch - yet they blew that like they do everything.
Compared to the iPhone, yes. But back then, before the iPhone, it *was* the PDA market leader and it was *THE* geek mobile OS - the Linux-based Sharp Zaurus was very rare outside Japan. Remember, back then there were no mobile devices with desktop OS'es - the OQO came out later. That is, if we wanted to have something REALLY powerful in our pocket for gaming (tons of console emulators etc.) / Internet (Web, mail etc.) / MP3 / video player / eBook reader / generic computing device, we chose WinCE / Pocket PC. Palm OS, Blackberry and Symbian were waaaay less "geeky" / powerful with WAY worse 3rd party SW support (video players, games etc).
I still have my Newton somewhere. It was and still is a super cool device. I remember the crush of people trying to get one at a tech conference I attended where Apple was selling them at a table. A coworker of mine used his Newton for everything including creating and displaying technical drawings. One day he pulled out his Newton and used it to change the channel on the wall-mounted television in the cafeteria using the Newton's IR emitter. He was a bit of a show off but really figured out how to work that thing.
And the only MAJOR 2 things that survived from the Newton was ...I still have one, For nostalgic reason i put some batteries in every few years, and admire how far we have come since then
The animated "Poof" when you delete text entered, macOS X had that when you moved things out of the dock. I think this is now gone though.
Pencil ... that evolved into the Pencil and Pencil 2 for the iPad Pro's.
Scribble ... remains in iPadOS.
What today? pffff ... yeah maybe on a table. The Newton was a HUGE device and most likely killed by Jobs not just due to poor sales but how bulky it looked. A brick, compared to the 3COM Palm Pilot was was beginning to debut at that time and comparatively the HP, Acer and other WinCE PDA devices were slightly lighter and thinner.
Funny enough with the expansion capabilties ... the Newton's spiritual successor, I think arguably was, the Compaq iPaq.
The iPhone was introduced to the US market in late June 2007. By mid December 2008, Palm announced it would no longer develop new handheld devices.
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Palm was also under considerable pressure from Handspring and Blackberry. I stopped using my Palm when I got the original iPhone.
Not exactly. Palm said it would not longer develop new PDAs, not that it would no longer develop new handheld devices. The company shifted exclusively to making smartphones.
Not sure what you are implying but Palm was in deep deep trouble even before the initial announcement. It wasn't like Palm was running around saying, "We're #1! We're #1! Oh wait, Apple released what? Peace out!"
Palm had quite a few years of phoning it in, no pun intended. Insider stock tip, when you see a company change it's logo and identity multiple times as Palm did in the early 00's, you know they're done.
Exactly. I had various Palm and Handspring devices in the late 90s and early 00s, followed by a Blackberry (as a work device) and eventually an iPhone with the 3 (GS?).