Sculley: Newton Laid the Groundwork for Today's Mobile Industry

[ctdonath]

Newton was years ahead of it's time.

Upon introduction, everyone knew instantly what it should have been - and it made a laudable attempt to fulfill that expectation. Everyone looked at it and expected the iPad with breathless enthusiasm (hey, I bought two Newtons). Alas, the coarse B&W LCD was an inadequate display, the computing power while awesome for the time wasn't enough for the obvious usage demands, it lacked wireless connectivity to a then-inadequate Internet, the user input suffered too great a delay and error rate, and the total mass was just too big/heavy. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts - and the parts insufficiently served that whole. Like a child aching to run races but unable to coordinate his feet, the concept was captured but a decade of growth was required.

Egg freckles!

 

[Consultant]

Sculley did a lot of things wrong with Apple at the time, but then again, so did Steve. Would Apple be the company it is now had things not turned out the way they did? Who can say? Probably not, but hindsight is always 20/20.

without Steve's Pixar experience and NeXT technology, Apple would not be the same

 

[rmwebs]

Because if Apple still owned 47% they would have had a lot of influence on how ARM licensed their technology. Back when XBox 360 came out Apple wasn't concerned with console gaming (still isn't) that in tern was just more money in the pocket of the company they helped start. As for Android most of their phones if not all run on ARM processors as do most mobile phones now and as Steve was ready to "go thermonuclear war" on Google he would have used his influence with ARM as a weapon against Android. I think that's pretty good business sense.

You dont get it. Even if Apple owned 47% of ARM, they wouldn't be able to stop its usage.

 

[McGiord]

Everything is connected:
- Xerox PARC Alto OS -> Lisa OS -> Mac OS -> NeXT -> Mac OS X -> iPhone OS -> iOS
- Microsoft contract with Apple to develop software for the Mac ->Word, Excel and PowerPoint -> Office -> Windows success for businesses
- Graffiti -> Solved Apple Newton handwritten recognition difficulties
- Graffiti -> Palm OS main key feature -> Handspring -> Treo -> Smartphones
- ARM processor -> Many of today's mobile devices and smartphones

Palm OS devices were the best out there in the late 90s, Apple took their time to make it way better, at the end they hit not one but many Home Runs!

I am grateful for all the great technology that is out there and how good and accessible it is nowadays.

Anyway, if this guy was the real man behind of some of the things he claims, well let him enjoy a few minutes of showtime, if he is full of BS, then let's just say that he gives us a discussion topic.

 

[kdarling]

There have been plenty of microprocessors in the past; there will be plenty more in the future.

If the ARM had not become popular, then everyone would be using Motorola or some other brand.

Especially in the case where all the apps are written in Java, the CPU can be almost anything.

 

[WickedMessenger]

The Newton had a beautiful logo.

Image

"Keep a clear head and always carry a light bulb" - Bob Dylan, 1966

 

[hchung]

Newton got it's handwriting recognition concept from PenPoint OS, from GO Corporation. GO and Apple failed, Palm learned the lessons and constrained the handwriting recognition to 1-letter at a time. Both EO 880 and Newton were harware constrained -- the object-oriented classes just had too much overhead. GO Corporation invented its own class manager on top of C, as C++ hadn't yet taken off. Newton and EO 880 had great technology -- definately ahead of their time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EO_Personal_Communicator

The EO was one of the first tablets released with handwriting recognition, but the recognizer wasn't developed by GO. (IBM for printed if I recall correctly and Lexicus)
Likewise, the Newton's recognizer (for NI1) wasn't developed by Apple either. (Paragraph)
Both recognizers were licensed from other companies, so seems hard to say "Newton got it's handwriting recognition concept from PenPoint OS, from GO Corporation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwriting_recognition

But yeah, these two devices were definitely ahead of their time.