The Newton O.S. Creeps Toward New Hardware 278
GraWil writes "As previously reported, the Apple Newton refuses to die! The Worldwide Newton Conference 2004 has wrapped up (photos) and, thanks to Paul Guyot, there is real hope for an emulator. His talk, titled 'Newton never dies, It only gets new hardware,' describes and shows the Einstein Emulator, that will eventually allow the Newton OS to be built and run on top of Unix. Will your next Linux PDA boot Newton OS next year?"
My question is... (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the most underrated technological devices (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, people never gave it a second chance. The 2000 and 2100, the final models of the Newton had excellent handwriting recognition and a faster processor that was pretty darned fast for the applications the Newton ran.
I'm glad to see holdouts trying to keep the heart beating. With the technology available today, a screamingly fast Newton could be housed in something no larger than your typical Palm. And that mid-90s software is BETTER than today's PalmOS.
Oh, and Graffiti SUCKS!
Re:To be honest... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of unfair judging the entire Newton line based on the original model.
It's a little like saying that Windows XP sucks (not for all the obvious reasons) because you've used Windows 1.0 (or even 3.1) and dislike all its limitations.
Lucas, Meet Jobs. Jobs, meet Lucas. (Score:5, Insightful)
What gives?
The only other person besides Jobs who so fearlessly tells a fan base to go collectively screw themselves is Lucas. Being a very technical user who has 2 mac laptops, a G5 desktop and an iPod, I could definitely put a Newton device to good use.
I can only hope that Apple current dealings with Motorola's cellular device division is working on an intigrated OS X compatable PDA for the iPhone to allow users to bluetooth and/or websynch (.mac account?) data from iTunes, Mail.app, Calandar and AddressBook.
Sniff, whats that I smell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to hear the Newton isn't dead yet, I still have my 130 and 110s, sold my 2100 a while back however (the things where selling used for as much as a notebook PC, I just couldn't resist).
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Sign me up! (Score:4, Insightful)
But you know what would be enough for me? If somebody would port something like the Newton's notepad to PalmOS. I haven't used a notepad app that even comes close. I really liked the whole application suite on NewtonOS, but in particular the way you could switch between handwriting recognition, sketches, outlines, and checklists so easily really got me hooked on PDAs.
Re:Data soup (Score:3, Insightful)
RE: Newton then and now (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that certainly didn't happen. Heck, the entire time I owned a Palm device, I think I only had one opportunity to "beam" someone's contact info from their organizer into mine as the "21st. century version of exchanging business cards". 99% of the time, when someone wanted to give me their info, they didn't have a PDA handy. So I'd just get a paper card or info scribbled on a piece of paper.
Half the time I owned my Palm IIIx, I'd go to use it only to find the batteries were about dead, because my wife got in the habit of playing card games on it at night before bed (with the backlight on the whole time, of course).
There still seem to be more than enough Newtons to go around, judging from eBay. (I've even seen a few "new in the box" ones auctioned there as recently as a month or two ago!) So if Jobs wants to blow off that whole market and leave it to others, I don't see why that's really such a big deal.
The only PDA I currently use is my Kyocera 7135 Smartphone - and honestly, the phone number info in its contact list is about the only crucial data I have in it. The rest is just stuff I use just because I can, like AvantGo -- but it's not a "critical application" by any means.
Re:Still viable (Score:4, Insightful)
Add in the ability to link different pieces of data (so if I have an appointment with somebody I can tap that person's name to bring up their contact info, and also include a link to a checklist of stuff I need to get done for that meeting, for example), and my Palm handheld might livie up to its name as a personal digital assistant rather than being a glorified address book and e-book reader.
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Re:I'd love to see Apple PDAs (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs *is* finally right in 2004: smrtfons not PDAs (Score:4, Insightful)
It's natural successor is the smart-phone concept--or, in other words, the "everything-a-PDA-was-ever-supposed-to-be-PLUS-A-
In those old Newton days, the PDA concept worked (witness the Palms, etc.) but whatever, Apple was hemhorraging money, Jobs hated Sculley and wanted to kill his baby, he just didn't get it, or blah blah blah. Whatever, man. Water under bridge.
He may not have been right then, but he is now. These devices MUST have cell phone built in (which, conveniently, also comes with wireless 'net access).
Apple obviously realizes this, because Jobs admitted to analysts that Apple recently took a new PDA all the way to the functional prototype stage, but decided not to market it. Of course!! Who would want a modern version of the Newton without wireless Internet and phone? Not very many people.
(The obvious counterpoint is that a *LOT* of people would want a smart phone with the elegance of the Newton but smaller color hardware....)
Those Newton freaks are right, you know; there *still* is nothing even half as cool as the Newton OS in the handheld space...)
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