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Second Post-Apple Newton Life?
An anonymous reader with a lot of time on his hands writes "As seen on Slashdot b e f o r e, the Newton refuses to die. Since Apple discontinued it, it got ATA, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zeroconf and even a NES emulator. Now, several Mac news sites r e p o r t, Newton users founded an association with John Sculley, who pushed the Newton at Apple, as its honorary president. They're organizing a conference in Paris in September. How long until all these users switch to new hardware?"
Sounds like Newton has an inertia of its own!
"An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."
John Kerry is a Joke!
I have a 2000, and i personally love it's form factor, it has a nice large screen. I use it for about everything you would normally use a PDA for.. Calendaring, contacts, etc etc.
I also use it for things such as doing Serial consoles on headless linux servers. The large screen makes the serial term a bit easier to use.
Who needs a color screen anyway, when you have a nice big green one =P not to mention the twin 5v PCMCIA slots for uber-expandability.
Also a good portion of the newton software makers, have long since been giving away their former products, so the software is free as well.
Long Live the Newton!
-Henry
--- #@$DF@#2%@^%3^&*$%FRHG%%[NO CARRIER]
Apple using their iPod popularity to move excitement to a handheld marketed to a younger generation.
I know it sounds confounded but think. They are blowing away the rest of the mp3 player competitors due to their marketing.
Now, I don't think Jobs would even consider something like that, actually he's laugh me out of whatever room I'm in if I mentioned it.
But if they can create such a buzz with the iPod couldn't they ride the buzz with a hip pocket organizer or even a program that syncs with the iPod combining all the third party news grab and weather grab apps into something that the iPod user could use to sync with other information.
Could they translate this underground buzz into something big? I think so.
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
Funny how the lousy 1 character links (Thanks Michael!!! not) are just 2 stories above a story about lousy UI design. Go figure.
What ever happened to letting us know where the links to go? For some reason, I have a feeling that single character links are not what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind for this thing.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I started with a Newton. It was big and sort of clumsy physically, though. So, I went to a PalmOS device. It paled in functionality by comparison, though. So I went to a Windows CE-based device. It was slow and clumsy and just not as metaphorically intutive.
In the end, I ended up with a Newton 2000 again. With other PDAs, I eventually just stop using them. With the Newton 2000, even though I bitch about its size, I find myself using it all the time.
It recognizes my handwriting, as fast as I can write it, the way I write it (without needing a cursor to position the text, without needing to learn a special alphabet, without needing to write all letters over one another or write in a specific area of the screen). It has a unique chronological interface for categorizing and indexing (the index view vs. the content view, plus the "scrollable" nature of the content you create, rather than storing things in "files" or "documents").
Recently a friend gave me a Linux-based Zaurus PDA. It's a great little PDA and it's cool to start the Terminal and type linux commands on the slide-out keyboard.
But there's just nothing like the Newton; it's not a subtle difference at all... the Newton's entire user interface is a radical departure from anything else in computing, and until you've tried it for a week or two, you have no idea just how poorly designed current PDAs are, software-wise.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Your Newton can also function as a web server among many other things, but the important thing to remember about the Newton is that this was all possible over ten years ago when the Newton was introduced in 1993 making a return on investment for a Newton quite impressive.
This also brings up another issue......Since Apple has left the PDA market, how much innovation has occurred? Color screens perhaps, but what else?
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Another place the NES breaks down is that the NES is ancient, technology wise. The Newton isn't, at least not compared to most of today's PDAs. The Newton has a 162 MHz StrongARM, still quite capable compared to a lot of the Palm OS units and even quite a few of the PocketPC models. You can upgrade that to 220 MHz if you're that kind of person. And as you and the poster mentioned, new hardwares being supported all the time. Yes, the NES has some great games, but the Newton is more than a curiosity with a couple decent apps, at least for the people that use them.
I stopped using my Newton a year ago. It's a shame. I had some good reasons, but what it came down to is that it didn't support one app that I can run on PocketPC or Linux PDAs- Squeak Smalltalk. If it wasn't for that, I'd still be using the Newton right now. Heck, when I got a Linux Zaurus C760 I still used the Newton for "PDA" stuff, especially taking notes, something the Newton still beats Palm OS and Linux by far. PocketPC- with the built-in notes app- gets pretty close, but a tiny 320x240 screen doesn't cut it for me. Linux PDAs have the saddest excuses for notetaking software ever, which had me taking both the Newton and the Zaurus with me for the day.
The Newton 2100, being released in 1997, still does a lot. Before I jumped ship, it was my main computer at home- I IRC'd, email'd, telnet/ssh'd, VNC'd, browsed the web, programmed (in NewtonScript and LittleLisp)- all wirelessly using a standard Orinoco WaveLAN 802.11b card. Worked like a dream. If only we could get an updated Newton... *sigh*
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I recently switched from a Newton. The reason was important to me, but for most PDA users it wouldn't be.
But, why not switch to a PocketPC or TabletPC? My answers:
Every PocketPC out there now is too small. A crappy 320x240 screen. There is one model with a VGA screen (Toshiba e805), but the screen is physically still quite small. Crappy for taking notes.
Why not a tabletPC? TabletPCs are expensive as hell, but more importantly HUGE. People talk about the Newton being big- I can't imagine putting what is basically a smaller laptop into my pocket. Nothing with a 10"-14" screen will fit in my pocket or be worth toting around all the time.
The closest thing to replacing the Newton for me in what I did with the Newton is the Sigmarion III, which has a 5" 800x480 screen. It also has an attached keyboard, which is really great for somethings, but rules out using it as a tablet. Sure, it has a touch screen, but since it doesn't do the hide-the-keyboard convertible thing, it's always in the way. A pain. The Jornada 720 was similarily great- close, but no cigar.
We Newton users are used to having what we want. Not something that *almost* does what we need.
I still have not found *any* notetaking app that even touches the built-in Notes app in years of looking, for Palm OS, Linux or WinCE/PocketPC PDAs. Taking notes- recognized text mixed with sketches- was a dream on my Newton. On my Clie NX70V, Sigmarion 3 or Sharp Zaurus C760 it is a big hassle. Hell, on the Zaurus, taking my class notes is downright tourtous enough that I just went back to using my Newton for most things, with the one thing I couldn't do on my newton (Squeak Smalltalk) running on my Z.
A couple things that could replace the Newton for me:
The new, 5" 800x600 screen'd Sony Vaio, U series. Not technically a TabletPC, but close. No good notetaking app I've found yet for XP or Linux, but it'd be fun. But the Sony costs almost three times as much as the Newton 2100 did brand new, $2000. Yeah right. I'm not going to tote around a $2000 computer with me all the time. Not unless someone is willing to donate one to my worthy cause...
Similar to this would be the OQO, although vapor doesn't do me any good.
Or, the NEXiO S160. Has the same 800x480 screen as the Sigmarion 3, but with a slower 400 MHz PXA250 CPU. From what I've heard, people like it- but still, it costs $1300.
As far as form factor, the NEXiO is about the closest thing I've seen to a Newton 2100. But a lot of Newton users- many of which are Mac users- aren't going to jump to the NEXiO, a device with no Mac support. But then again, at least the NEXiO runs real WinCE.NET 4.1- not crappy ol' PocketPC. Like the Newton, a real WinCE device doesn't need to be sync'd or connect to a desktop machine to be useful or to install apps.
There's your answer- there are no good Newton replacements. The one that exists costs 4 times as much as a really good Newton setup does if purchased today- we're talking about the Newton 2100, with a keyboard, big memory card and wifi or ethernet.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
This is natural progression, not innovation. I think you're confusing theese two things.
Yeah, you can get a faster CPU in something newer.
But battery life? Nope. Newton outlasts almost all PocketPCs and newer Palm OS models. Sure, a Palm III running on a couple AAs will still outlast a Newton MP2100, but the Newton will outlast my Clie NX70V or Dell Axim any day of the week.
More portable? That depends on what you mean. Yes, a PalmOne Tungsten E is smaller, but the Newton is more useful. The Newton replaced a laptop for me, which in the end gives you a lot more portability per unit volume than almost anything else.
Wifi and bluetooth- built-in. Well, I suppose you could always use the "built-in" argument. You can get wifi and BT cards for the Newton, though.
And you can play hours of music- though not video so much. I used to use a 2 GB PCMCIA hard drive- same kind as in the iPod- in my Newton with the ATA driver. Worked like a charm. Even synced with iTunes over ethernet. Unless you have a PCMCIA slot, using a PDA as an mp3 player kind of sucks. Unless you want to spend a month's pay on a couple GB CF or SD cards. My Jornada 720 had a PCMCIA slot too, but since I've used those, I've stopped using my PDA as an MP3 player. Too much hassle to put the two albums I can fit on it every morning, which translates into me not doing it. And having the same The Cure and Atmosphere albums on my PDA all the damn time got old.
Who watches videos on their PDA? I suppose, on my Clie NX70V- which has an MPEG4 decoder chip- I tried watching Kill Bill, conveniently downloaded in Clie-ready format. But it blew. Same with on my Sigmarion 3, which has a nicer 5" 800x480 screen. Still blew. Who wants to watch a movie on a tiny screen? Hell, I don't bother watching movies on my iBook screen, let alone a wee PDA screen. Maybe if you were some crazy teevee addict, maybe then it'd be worth it.
Web browsing? I'd been browsing the web on my Newton via ethernet, and then wifi, before it occured to anyone to give a Palm III a big add-on modem cradle to fetch email.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The Newton Community is a very interesting case of users continuing to support a product which for all intents and purposes should have died years ago.
Why, exactly, should Newton "have died years ago"? You buy a product to satsify a need. If the product satisfies that need, and continues to do so, why stop using it?
Most of us have literally bought into the notion that only the latest, greatest version of a product can possibly meet our needs. Along with that comes the idea that only a product that's actively supported by its manufacturer is suitable for use. We're "consumers" because we buy a thing and use it until it's all used up -- we "consume" it -- and then we go buy another thing. This is great for an industry whose financial health is based on "upgrades." If we didn't all go buy new computers every few years, the computer industry would be in much worse shape than it is. But it's not necessarily in our own best interests.
Newton is a case where a product designed well and implemented well served its purpose well, and continues to do so. The manufacturer no longer supports it, but that doesn't really make a difference to those for whom Newton currently works.
If Nokia suddenly went out of business, would you instantly run out and buy a new phone? If Palm went belly-up, would you trash your Tungsten and buy something else? And if you would, why?
I will. I'm an emate fan as I noted in an earlier post. Here's what I want:
- Form factor of the original. It's different for the handheld newtons but for the emate this means a usable keyboard that makes very little noise and a handle (and preferably indestructible green plastic around everything).
- An option to get a greyscale screen. Color will be cool but I prefer battery life and it would be great if there was a much cheaper greyscale option.
- A reasonably fast processor -- no need for 300+MHz they're putting in Axims and stuff, just something as fast as what's in last year's Palms.
- Easy internet with wifi, as well as easy sync of key documents. My biggest complaint about my emate is I can't figure out how to turn the stuff I type into documents on my computer that I can edit easily. Or put textfiles from my computer onto my emate. I can do this with any new pda (I can even do it with my ipod).
- Text editor. Something simple like the notepad included is fine, though preferably something with more modern capabilities. A NewtonOS equivalent of BBEdit would ROCK. (Yeah yeah so would emacs, I suppose).
- A terminal emulater that at least does ssh connections.
- A simple web browser.
- An email program.
That's about it. I don't want a camera, mp3 player, or phone, but any of those things could be included as options. You don't need to design something I can hold with my neck -- just stick a headset jack on the machine. Personally I want it to look like the emate. That oqo is pretty cool looking but I bet the keypad is a bitch to type on. If you're just talking about handhelds, I'd ditch the keypad, or maybe just leave a number pad for dialing (assuming it's a cellphone) on one side of it, but otherwise just go for something like the Clie T55 form factor. Keep it simple. There's no need for a keypad nobody will use. If you want a usable keyboard, make a bigger device. Those are just my thoughts, I'm sure others will disagree....I've been a technology guy at two companies that, at least for a time, were very serious about building software for PDAs and other handheld devices. These days, all of the momentum has shifted to writing applications for phones.
That said, I've had occasion to use at length every single Palm (including the newest Treos and Clies), Pocket PC, MagicCap device, etc.
To this day, I keep a Newton MP2100 charged and ready to go behind my desk. Why? Meetings. The Newton's larger form factor makes it ideal for taking notes in meetings. Laptops are too distracting and unnatural, and anything with a smaller screen is too awkward. Further, the Newt's handwriting recognition makes note taking a natural task. Try graffiti for a lengthy set of detailed meeting notes, and you'll see what I mean.
It helps that the user community has kept up with change. I use NewtSync to sync the notes I take on my Newton back to OS X. It also nicely copies my calendar, contacts, and to-do lists to my Newton.
I must admit that I've ben eying an OQO, but with each passing day, its fixed specs are starting to seem less and less impressive, and I don't think I could see myself typing away at one during a meeting.
Except, the Newton OS seems to have *some* value to Apple. There is InkWell in OS X, which is Newton handwriting recognition.
People have tried to convince Apple to open source the Newton OS. Apple has claimed that it cannot- be it for copyright/patent, value or personal reasons. Everyone knows Jobs hated the Newton. Some people seem to think he's set a no OSing of NOS policy because of this, though that sounds like a helluva grudge.
You can already get the NewtonOS, at least in the binary sense that you can ProDOS. There are utilities for doing a ROM dump. Feel free to reverse engineer it.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad