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Newton Revival?

RIP said:
I would use my Newton today if it weren't for the difficulty making it communicate with the rest of the world. I fire it up now and again to remember where we should be, philosophically, in handheld computing.
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Someone care to explain why Newton's were so great? I know the handwriting recognition was better than that of Palm handhelds... but other than that, what made them so much better? Is this just Apple fandom, or was it really that revolutionary? (I've never used one, so I just don't know much about them.)

I'd be happy with an iPod mini with a stylus and Inkwell handwriting recognition. They wouldn't even need to add much in the way of other software, just allow the user to enter new contacts and edit their calendar.
 
The Newton didn't "fail", and Apple wasn't "beaten" in the PDA market; if anything, the Newton was just beginning to realize its potential. Apple only stopped production of the Newton when Steve came back to save Apple's sinking ship and decided to refocus co. resources on absolute bare-minimum essential products necessary to get the co. healthy again: two desktops (iMac and PowerMac) and two laptops (iBook and PowerBook), no mas. Since Apple isn't in such dire straits (cue "Money for Nothing" :D ) as it was when Steve re-seized the helm, they can now afford to consider expanding to other, more speculative product lines, the iPod being the first notable example (perhaps of many more to come?).

BTW, we might also consider the possibility that the co. doing this research isn't doing it on behalf of Apple but, rather, may be weighing the potential value of making Apple an offer to buy or license Newton technology for their own, independent production (remember that Sharp and others had licensed NewtonOS for their own proto-PDAs, back in Tha Daye).
 
atari1356 said:
Someone care to explain why Newton's were so great? I know the handwriting recognition was better than that of Palm handhelds... but other than that, what made them so much better? Is this just Apple fandom, or was it really that revolutionary? (I've never used one, so I just don't know much about them.)

I'd be happy with an iPod mini with a stylus and Inkwell handwriting recognition. They wouldn't even need to add much in the way of other software, just allow the user to enter new contacts and edit their calendar.
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It's the way it worked. It actually interacted and learned about you. But as a single example one of the cool "working" abilities were the "assist" button. For instance. You could be in a meeting taking notes in notepad. Suddenly it comes to your attention that you need to schedule a reminder about something. While in notepad you simply write in plain handwriting "remember to meet with Brian at 10am on Feb 5th about the new manufacturing process". You would then press the assist button and the Newton would then create for you a to-do item, for 10 am on the 5th of Feb. with notes to meet with Brian about the Manufacturing process while never leaving the notepad. While it is not more difficult really to leave one application to go to another to add that info and then return the previous app, there is the "human" aspect of the way the Newton worked that is amazing and intelligent. It has to be experienced to really appreciate. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Would someone with a better memory than I jump in here and assist with this question.
 
i have a handspring and never use it. i'd buy and apple cell phone but not a pda. i dont use them enough. even if the new newton was a pda/phone i wouldnt get one. one of the things i like about my cell is that it is simple. i press the numbers, then send, and im connected. no text messages, no confusing interface. very staight forward. plus, if i had a butchered version of os x on a handheld device, i would feel limited with its functionality. i want to do everything (games,dreamweaver, ect), everywhere.

in summery-
apple pda- no
apple cell phone- yes
apple pda/sell phone- no
amerosa's own talk show- NO
 
New Market

As pointed out, the PDA market is dryign up because of smart phones. Most of the features that people want in a new device can be found in a subnotebook. I think there needs to be a subnotebook that works on flash memory (perhaps with a a drive like the iPod) so it can turn on and off like a PDA. Subnotebooks are great but near useless because they still are too big and heavy and take too long to turn on and off. If there was a device that could record voices, type text, recognise handwriting, and was large enough to write on like paper that could be used at will, I think it would open up a new market between PDAs and notebooks.
 
Geez. Doesn't anybody remember the eMate?
The PDA market is shrinking, so forget that. Make an ultra-portable laptop with newton tech. revive the eMate.
Now THAT would be a blockbuster.
 
Stella said:
The PDA market is dying, this can be seen by market treads already. Apple should instead make a newton smartphone - this is the emerging market.
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Agreed. No matter what it's called, I'd like to see Apple offer an alternative to Symbian. Nobody makes money selling PDAs and it would be downright stupid for Apple to take another run at this market. That being said, for sheer ease of use, functionality and elegance, my MP 120 surpassed anything that came after it, and I'd never have bought a Palm device if Apple had shrunk the Newt and made it less expensive. Not that Apple could have made a better show of it than Palm in terms of making it profitably. A mobility OS based on Newton and QuickTime technologies -- that's the ticket!
 
There was only one thing wrong with the device in its time: Form factor. It was too big. It wouldn't fit in most pockets, so you couldn't take it along mindlessly like a Palm - you had to make accomodations to carry it, and so you couldn't use it regularly on impulse. And if they had continued development, it would have gotten a lot smaller very soon. They were in the process of shrinking the circuits way down.

Today, I don't think the thing to do is revive the Newton OS - even though I could go on and on an on about how great that OS was. I especially loved its file system/database. Today Apple needs to make a very small Mac with a real Mac OSX in it. AirPort Extreme is the only I/O it needs, though I'd accept USB2 or 4-pin firewire. No keyboard, inkwell, stylus, 40-60GB hard disk internal or in the only slot, 640x480 pixels minimum, and basically the whole of Max OSX. Ironically, my favorite form factor today would be the size of a DVD case because I'm convinced a good-sized screen is important, but these days making the whole thing pocket sized is very possible. The only technical problem is battery life. As for price I pretty much don't care. No need to make this device cheap, just to make it available and high quality.
 
atari1356 said:
Someone care to explain why Newton's were so great? I know the handwriting recognition was better than that of Palm handhelds... but other than that, what made them so much better? Is this just Apple fandom, or was it really that revolutionary? (I've never used one, so I just don't know much about them.)
Click to expand...

The Newton is to the Palm what the Mac is to Windows. They both do more or less the same thing, but one does it with far more elegance and refinement. It's always painful to see a stone axe beat a laser beam, but as they say in warfare, sometimes quantity becomes quality.
 
I never saw the necessity for a PDA until recently. My iBook 12" is ultra portable and since it is so stable I can open it and input into iCal instantly. This was not really possible with XP as it took too long for me and my PC laptop was so heavy I hated carrying it around.

However, I recently found a reason not to carry my laptop around....I work in a chemical lab and we had a fire in which a lot of the yellow silt that came out the extinguisher (a chemical fire set up) settled on my iBook. I also have the opportunity to get an old PowerMac at my desk with Panther. Thus, I could use .Mac to upload all my imporant files and then access them at my desk at work. I could stop bringing my laptop to work and I could use a PDA for those away from work and home situation...(ie: class and group meetings).

Imagine an Apple PDA that not only could sync and use wireless LAN, but one that could access .Mac. I think that would be increase the ultility of .Mac also.
 
Is GSM popular enough in North America that people in general would buy a "newton phone?" Europe/Asia get phones way before we do usually, so would this be released overseas first? Any mobile phone experts out there...?
 
Lepton said:
Ironically, my favorite form factor today would be the size of a DVD case because I'm convinced a good-sized screen is important, but these days making the whole thing pocket sized is very possible. The only technical problem is battery life. As for price I pretty much don't care. No need to make this device cheap, just to make it available and high quality.
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Nice ideas - yeah, a small SERIOUS device (not PDA) would be welcome. Many of us here have dropped serious cash on all sorts of solutions (I think of HD backups for my mobile digital photography need) where a small screen, decent storage space, an acceptable i/o, and portability are the key.

And you're right to skip the bottomfeeders - let them buy 100 oz. boxes of crap at Samsclub. Focus on solving portable needs with a limited but still powerful device, and there's enough of a market out there to make people happy.
 
johnnyjibbs said:
The problem is, inkwell doesn't work that well on Mac OS X I don't think. If I had to rely on it I might go nuts.
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I was using Inkwell the other day with my Wacom tablet in OS X and it was working better than I expected. I wish Microsoft give the Pocket PC OS handwriting recognition, Inkwell's functionality and recognition capabilities. Because right now the PPC's handwriting recognition sucks! :mad:

Apple might give a future Ipod, Newton-like qualities though. :)
 
sushi said:
Saturation, as in market saturation?

Where did you hear this? Source please.

Sushi
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Agreed.

I certainly know more people who lust after my ipod than those who have one. Besides, when did the walkman market become saturated? The discman? IMO they didn't, because there are always KIDS who want these things. Kids/teenagers are a huge market. The key, however, is to stay on top of the portable music market, and not get wiped out like the discman has from next gen. portable MP3 players.

As far as a Newton II goes, while i certainly can see apple doing research, I don't believe this is the right time. I do not know people lusting after pdas. I see more people lusting after cell phones.

A cellphone/mp3 player with style and ipod ease of use would be the way to get into the "communications gadget" market (think kids/teenagers). I say market something simple like this first, and then add the pda features later.
 
My $0.02

There are two basic classes of users for these portable devices.1) People who carry a briefcase. 2)People that don't.

People who don't generally carry a briefcase/bag/etc. are never going to accept a product that is larger than pocket sized, since it changes their behavior pattern.

People who do carry some sort of bag and would be willing to use a larger device have the laptop as an option.

So the possibilities are: A pocket-sized device that will compete with smartphones OR a larger device that will compete with laptops.

IMHO, the iPod will morph into the smart-phone competitor. It will slowly get more and more functions, probably starting with a color screen and handwriting recognition for basic note-taking. Eventually it will get some sort of cell-phone functionality but that will probably not come untill the cell phones start incorporating hard-drives and threatening the iPod on the music front, at which time I'd be willing to bet the iPod/iTunes will start offering some sort of "high-fi", like a compressed version of DVD audio.

Which leaves the laptop competitor... I think that this is where a newton-like product would work well. Something along the lines of the size of the gemstar e-book reader, though thinner, and lighter. What it would need to sell it is AE and bluetooth connectivity, a good screen, excellent handwriting recognition, and great battery life (at least double that of a laptop, if not more). Furthermore, it needs something akin to iTunes connectivity for the iPod, except for the kinds of documents people tend to carry in their briefcases, i.e. The Wallstreet Journal, some documents they need to review, an old Edgar Rice Burroughs book... etc. etc. I'm thinking like an iBookshelf application that sorts and catagorizes all your text documents whether their Word, PDF, Rich Text, an RSS subscription, sticky notes, etc. etc.
 
PBGPowerbook said:
Is GSM popular enough in North America that people in general would buy a "newton phone?" Europe/Asia get phones way before we do usually, so would this be released overseas first? Any mobile phone experts out there...?
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Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile all use GSM, which is a considerable share of the market.
 
It's all how Apple redefines the market

All,

When considering the possible revival of the Newton, I see two hurdles that are most often cited:

a) Steve says he will never do one.

b) The market is shrinking among a glut of competitors

I say neither of these are real obstacles once the marketing geniuses @ Apple get theings rolling. The new Newton (if one should be forthcoming) would be substantially different from the Palm paradigm, enough so that Jobs would say it is not the same thing at all.

As far as the market is concerned, the very same arguments could be heard regarding mp3 players on the eve of the initial iPod release. "No one will buy the thing--too expensive" was the mantra. Yeah, right.

What we know for sure is this: if Apple creates a stylistically chic, well-designed product that substantially expands the user's personal productivity and/or enhances their lifestyle, Apple will move them by the truckload. Prices will be high, but customers will pay down to have something cool and fun.

A completely redesigned, sleek, chic Newton would sell big. People would buy them if only because they WOULDN'T look like a boxy, clumsy Palm.

I think this would be the perfect product for the "take your OS with you" technology. A nice 40GB drive with your home OS files so that your Mac at work and at home have 100% the same feel--who wouldn't want that?

FireWire, Bluetooth, Airport Extreme, yes, yes, and yes. Also, some sort of factory-interchangable module inside to swap out for various cellphone technologies and providers. Yes, the thing would probably have to be a phone as well. And have the functionality of an iPod.

Based on all that, the obvious name for this product would be as already suggested: POWERPOD. The professional incarnation of the consumer-grade iPod. And it wouldn't be cheap--probably near the price of an entry-level eMac--but if it were a quantum leap cooler, "user-friendlier," and it significantly enhanced the productivity of the user without any added headaches, it would sell. BIG. With digital cell technology it might even become a field-deployed enterprise device to compete with Blackberrys.

Oh, there's definitely money in this if they do it right.
 
Let's bring back the eMate 300 too! I could upgrade mine to the new "eMate 3000".

Did anyone watch that Newton Trash movie? The poor user sure has a hard time finding "Delete" in the menu!
 
PowerPoint???

kiwi_the_iwik said:
PDAs today have reached the maximum level of PDAdom. Time to move on to something more PRACTICAL for video/audio/word processing/spreadsheet/presentation work.

Wouldn't it be grand for any executive to load in a PowerPoint presentation to their new DHK (sorry - I've seemed to adapt that name now...!), take it with them to the boardroom, and connect it directly to the video projector, hit "Play", and conduct their presentation with considerable ease?
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Don't you mean Keynote??
:p
 
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