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History of the Apple Newton
Sabah Arif writes "We've all heard of Apple's Newton, the portable handheld device under John Sculley's rule at Apple that debuted to big media attention and much fanfare but never managed to take a strong footing in the marketplace. The same handhel that went on to be 'Steve'd' when Mr. RDF killed the project after taking control of Apple. That's the extent of knowledge most of us have with regard to Apple's first handheld device. OS Opinion sheds light on the early days of the pocket Apple." From the article: "Apple in the late eighties had become stagnant. The Macintosh had become Apple's cash cow like the Apple II that had preceded it. To protect the Mac, Apple was hesitant to start or pursue any project that might compromise the company's revenues. Several people in the corporation were weary of this approach, and began to look at the future of computing. One of those people was Steve Sakoman."
Yet again, another clueless mod shows his ignorance...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
He was intrigued with the idea of scrapping the keyboard. The fact that most computers used a QWERTY keyboard was a mere fluke, he thought. Steve thought that a more natural method of input would take hold, like handwriting or speech.
Handwriting: vastly slower than typing, even for crummy typists like me.
Speech: unusable except in private.
Does anyone see anything replacing keyboards anytime soon?
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I had the chance to use one of these things about five years ago. As part of a class, one thing we did was to take light intensity and temperature data. The really nice thing about the Newton was that, well before any of the Palm devices, you were able to take data, and then manipulate it right on the spot.
AFAIK, the Newton got discontinued because there was no demand for it. They weren't selling well, so Apple decided that it wouldn't make them anymore. Had it come around several years later, just as Palms, etc, were exploding into the market, the current tablet PC market would be a lot different.
I have an MP100, and it was ahead of it's time. It did a lot of things well (except HWR), and with a better processor HWR would've come along (and IAR Graffiti was available for the Newt).
Later I had a 2K with keyboard and modem for a review I was writing. It truly was a very usuable laptop replacement, I carried it to class in grad school. Unfortunately, the price killed it - I also had a PalmPilot, as an organizer it's size and lower cost made it a far better machine than the Newton. For whatever reason, Apple decided not to develop the Newt to it's true potential while Palm created a new market.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
And I love it. I print rather than write with it, and I find the accuracy is great. I also have Grafitti installed on it, but I hardly ever use it.
I've used Palms and PocketPC's, but go back to the Newton for it's simple and elegant interface, which makes we actually want to use it, and keep my calendar and contacts up to date.
Although the HWR gets all the attention whenever someone writes about the Newton, the one aspect I would have loved to see advanced and developed was the Assist button. Tap on it, enter something like "Have lunch with Bob on Tuesday", and it will search your contact list, automatically create a meeting on Tuesday for you.