New Newton - Not From Apple?

[MacRumors]

ThinkSecret provides followup on the earlier hints of a Newton revival.

According to statements from Stone Multimedia, while Apple is not interested in relaunching the Newton, a 3rd party is reportedly in negotiations with Apple to acquire and relaunch the Newton platform.

At the time of the Newton's demise, Apple had already spun the Newton division into a subsidiary, but after Jobs' return, the entire division was reabsorbed into Apple and discontinued.

 

[AmigoMac]

Nooooooo! I want it from apple! ...

 

[Photorun]

Intriguing, very intriguing. I wonder what OS it'd run?

 

[arn]

Intriguing, very intriguing. I wonder what OS it'd run?

Newton OS

arn

 

[0 and A ai]

I wonder who is behind this. I think some mac friendly people with alot of money.

I guess they see a niche here they can fill. Very interesting nevertheless.

 

[idkew]

Unless the new Newton is more than a PDA, it will fail. It is 100% necessary that it be small, have cell phone capabilities, and the ability to expand and add GPS, WiFi...

I would love to see a Newton with tomorrow's technology today, once again.

 

[kainjow]

I'd buy one. All the other PDA's for Mac suck. I want a PDA that works just as smooth with my computer as my iPod does.

 

[Phatpat]

And its 100% necessary for the iPod mini to cost less than $200, or it will fail. Oh wait....

 

[Photorun]

Newton OS

arn

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of would it be OS X-ish.

 

[gandalf55]

I would love a Newton reborn as long as it still used the data soup paradigm & used an enhanced Newton OS.

 

[Jerry Spoon]

I'm all for this. Let's see what enhancements they come up with and if it's a success that will be great...of course Apple will be pissed.

 

[chubad]

I'm all for this. Let's see what enhancements they come up with and if it's a success that will be great...of course Apple will be pissed.

Why would Apple be pissed if it is a success? I'm sure they would get $$ for the licensing.

 

[Tommy Wasabi]

MP2001 Rocked

I still have my MP2001 (and a 2000 and 110 and 130).

The last MP was the best - add some new functionality (bluetooth, wi-fi) and it would beat any iPaq on the planet.

But alas, someone will screw it up and it will end up in the bit bucket.

If only Apple would covert one of it's Powerbooks to be a Tablet - THEN I WOULD BE IN HEAVEN.

 

[spinko]

Intriguing, very intriguing. I wonder what OS it'd run?

A scaled-down version of MacOSX with a fast processor, an ATI graphic chip and lots of mem

 

[Mr.Hey]

It has to be Woz and his company WOZ

 

[varmit]

this could just be outsourcing

Getting someone else to take the bill, but the Apple logo still gets slapped on it. Just the Third party has to do all the work. Split profits since Apple gives all the stuff about Newton to third party and will be the name brand for it and marketer, while third party get a good amount of profit and get to see all the info and code from old newton or anything that Apple has done in the PDA area so they can make the new Newton. If it fails, then Apple has nothing to worry about, if it succeeds, both parties make some money.

 

[Tommy Wasabi]

Cap Trick?

The cap trick? What's that? (Sorry - been living under a rock since superbowl sunday - something about a boob flashing that made me want to hide)

 

[Tulse]

I don't know if this is actually true, but I recall hearing a year or so ago that, in an interview, an exec had said that Apple couldn't locate the hard drive that had the source code for the Newton OS. This may be completely fabricated, though -- has anyone else heard a similar story?

(To be honest, I don't know that such a loss would be that critical, as I imagine a revived Newton would be a ground-up rewrite.)

 

[pcp_ip]

The facts.

This is not going to happen. It was attempted after the Newton was killed. In 1998 Planet Computing as well as 2 other companies seperately approached Steve Jobs to purchase the Newton technology. Apple had nothing to sell. They had lost all the assets of Newton Division. Apple needed cash back then. If it was do-able sale, Steve would have dumped the Newton.

By '98 Apple had lost most of the Newton developers to Palm. The brain drain had left any remaining Newton projects in such disarray that there was little comprehensible code or hardware that could be resold. All of this is well documented somewhere on Newt Users Groups. Newton users tried hard to get anything out of Apple to allow them to continue to develop for their Newtons.

Today there's NO Newton developers left at Apple. No one there would know how to piece together the remaining Newton Projects.

This sale will never happen.

As a LONG time newton user- there was nothing like it. Long before palm/CE based handhelds had internet access Newtons could surf the web with javascript and frames support. Current developers have it isyncing, playing mp3s and using wi-fi. 7 years later and it's still a killer handheld. Show me a 7 year-old palm dog that can do new tricks, let alone a 2 year-old palm.

 

[AngryAngel]

Why would someone wanting to resurrect the Netwon ask Stone, a multimedia/presentations company to ask people's opinions of the idea? It makes no sense, apart from if Stone wanted to increase their hits.

Why would Woz want anything to do with someone else's idea- he had nothing to do with the Newton? However, I've done some Googling, and it seems Woz did like the Newton:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=460

 

[Frisco]

It's always a good thing when 3rd parties develop for the Mac. Hey Apple can't do it alone. I always see new gadgets coming out that are PC only. If Apple wants to get back into the game it is key that 3rd parties develop for the Mac. I would love to one day walk into a CompUSA and see items on the shelf that say Mac only

 

[0 and A ai]

I'm all for this. Let's see what enhancements they come up with and if it's a success that will be great...of course Apple will be pissed.

I'm sure if they show signs of being succesful apple will buy them.
Who knows this might be there plan.

 

[0 and A ai]

This is not going to happen. It was attempted after the Newton was killed. In 1998 Planet Computing as well as 2 other companies seperately approached Steve Jobs to purchase the Newton technology. Apple had nothing to sell. They had lost all the assets of Newton Division. Apple needed cash back then. If it was do-able sale, Steve would have dumped the Newton.

Maybe jobs saw potential and decided to keep it to revive it one day if necessary looks like so far hes decided no. looksl ike its gonna be that way so apple might sell it.

 

[CaptainScarlet]

Don't get it!!

Beside the device coming from Apple, I really can't see why anyone would want Apple to invest time and money into a new Newton device.

Wouldn't you want Apple to spend time on making a better computer or more software???

Or improve the battery life on an iPod??


Or how about the ultimate quesiton??? Why hasn't Apple created any KILLER GAMES?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

That's what I want to know....




CS.....

 

[pcp_ip]

Maybe jobs saw potential and decided to keep it to revive it one day if necessary looks like so far hes decided no. looksl ike its gonna be that way so apple might sell it.

Jobs killed the Newton because it was a pepsi kid project. The technology is too old now. They'd need major development to add color and rebuild the OS to run on faster chips.

The only piece of the Newton pie that would be worth anything today is the handwriting engine- and Apple has rolled that into OSX