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Apple Newton vs. Apple iPhone
An anonymous reader writes "CNET UK has written a head-to-head piece entitled Apple Newton vs Apple iPhone. Despite the Newton being released some 10 years ago, and despite the iPhone being a phone, not a tablet, the site's editors believe the Newton is the more innovative of the two Apple products. The two devices were tied over four rounds, but in the 'Special Powers' element, where the iPhone was praised for its iPod capability, the Newton countered with its ability to play MP3s, connect to iTunes and 'its ability to work as a phone' because 'Blam! Not even the iPhone can do that.'"
Shouldn't the iPhone get points in this comparison for not being the equivalent of carrying a Dell laptop's giant powerbrick around in your pocket?
I know this article was written all in fun, but - you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone that'd want to carry a Newton around instead of an iPhone. Or a Newton instead of even a Windows Mobile device.
#DeleteChrome
The Newton wasn't close to innovating, it was innovating. Newton Soup, the shape recognition, the drag-to-edge copy and paste implementation, the entire hybrid class-for-model, prototype-for-UI language concept, agents, and a number of other things in the Newton were innovative and are still better than most contemporary systems. The iPhone's only selling point is that it has a UI that sucks a lot less than most of its competitors.
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You can rock some serious MP3 Action in all it's 128kbps 22Khz Mono glory! - http://40hz.org/Pages/MADNewton
The original Newton - the MessagePad - was released in 1993. Heck, The Steve *cancelled* Newton more than 10 years ago. Really.
It's been 21 minutes since this article was posted. Where's the next Apple Slashvertisement? I keep refreshing the front page but there are no new stories. /wrists
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
I had a Newton Message Pad 100 (the very first model) which I bought cheap in '94 on a whim. It was already totally outdated when I bought it. Still, in its lifetime, I printed from it, sent and received faxes from it, all kinds of stuff you'd normally need a computer for. Totally handy.
Come '96 and I'm in grad school and I take every note for the whole two years on that thing and it was GREAT. I mean really, had it been a pain would I have kept on the entire time? Having a pretty big screen meant you had plenty of room to scrawl out those notes on the screen, and as I had maybe not 'neat' handwriting, but at least consistent handwriting it worked great.
In 1996, being able to search your notes on the computer saved me so much time that I could have a band. So maybe having a Newton didn't get me chicks, but at least the band did!
Then, in 2000, I was still using it. But I accidentally left it on a conference room table after a meeting and it disappeared. It actually got STOLEN. In the 21st century.
Vaya con huevos, my darling.
Problem is, innovation doesn't sell and make large profits in the world of technology. Apple now plays it safe, copies ideas and makes them better and generally useable. Then they sell for a neat profit.
Which isn't a problem. What I don't like is the part where they turn around and proclaim themselves as innovators.
I really liked the part where the guy championing the Newton slapped KO'd his opponent with a link. She had previously written an article citing "The iPhone is the worst phone in the world".
I'm sure they had great make up sex later on.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
I have an iphone (3Gs) and hate it. Terrible phone. Nice toy though. Even though I hate the keyboard, I have to say that the large screen was the innovation that sold me: I can actually read a slashdot story on this device. But so many things are broken, it's just too much. Some of it is ATT, yes.
I'm going to Verizon Real Soon Now, for real phone service, and getting a real GPS, so my locator service will actually work when I need it, not just 1/3 of the time. Those are the two things I really wanted out of a phone, and I'm not getting either of them now.
Apple just likes the word because it begins with an i.
I expect they'll change their name to iPple as soon as they realize they need to, to outrun their bad reputation with app developers.
The original Newton - the MessagePad - was released in 1993. Heck, The Steve *cancelled* Newton more than 10 years ago. Really.
That's the submitter's error. Article says the Newton was 10 years old last time they did such a comparison, against an early windows mobile device.
The iPhone UI sucks a lot harder than WebOSs, and it is no better than Android.
The ONLY selling point of the iPhone is the ecosystem. Brand loyalty, huge number of apps and huge installed base. The phone itself is bland compared to all the other offerings(most new phones are essentially an iPhone plus a couple other features, like a high res display or a physical keyboard), and the software is about as advanced as Palm OS 4.0. I don't know how Apple can ship a product in 2009 that doesn't support multitasking.
Um what? If the iPhone was nothing new, when it was released and even now, you wouldn't have competitors scrambling to catch up. If there was no innovation, there wouldn't be anything to catch up to.
One thing they left out in the app comparison is that Newton users can add in any apps they wanted. They're not limited to the ones approved by Apple in the gated community known as the App Store.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Microsoft has been doing the same for years now. Anyone that believes corporate propaganda should go out and get some fresh air.
And they are routinely derided for it. Like when they suddenly claimed that they invented symbolic links. Apple is not. It's not really the propaganda isn't what annoys me, it's the mindless worship from their fans that gets to me. And I LIKE Apple products. I think that right now they make the best computers out there. But I'm not going to switch that like to the company. A company is a piece of paper filed with the state.
It does support multitasking, it just doesn't support multitasking with third party apps through the official app store. The apple apps can multitask, as can third party apps on jailbroken phones.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Wow... just.... wow
That must be the worst written article I've read this month. Or possibly ever.
Hey, I know, let's next compare a raft made of barrels to the International Space Station and let's have the raft win because it has easier access and is cheaper to make and maintain.
Again. Just... wow
Not just the UI, it was the browser that made it sell well. There wasn't a single phone with a decent browser before the iPhone. Opera Mobile was somewhat decent, but compared so mobile Safari, Safari wins. This is a bit less of a selling point now with Android and others have decent browsers, but at the time if you wanted to surf the web you'd better get an iPhone. Yeah, the iPhone wasn't very innovative, but the fact that it had a complete package (ability to play music decently, videos, YouTube, good browser, later addition of apps, etc) made it a best seller even when tied to an overpriced network.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Hey, constant reinforcement is needed so that people know that the money spent and being spent on a phone and plan is justified. I like my phone too (It's an Android), but I don't need to be constantly told how smart or cool I am, based upon my purchase.. dumbasses and jerks can spend money on these things too.. and probably think it changes them somehow.. how sad.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
The iPhone was not very innovative from a technological point of view, but what it did to the market is nothing short of amazing. For a phone that sucked so badly in some functions, even really basic ones, it managed to create a buzz and won over many people (like myself) who had previously not used Apple products and were always a little ware of the fanboys. The iPhone's UI is a strong selling point, but I'd say the attractive package was a factor as well. The real kicker tough is the touch screen, without which that wonderful UI would not have been so great. I'm not thinking about pinch-zooming here, but about the ability to whip out the phone and use it without a stylus, even being able to quickly punch out an SMS using nothing but my chubby fingers.
All those things came together nicely for the first time in the iPhone; it's the first phone I've come across that really invites people to use it, especially when it comes to apps and the internet. Mobile data usage has jumped since the iPhone's introduction, and it has taken an astounding share of that usage compared to it's market share, even though many phones with similar capabilities already existed. Without being very innovative itself, it has proven to be a gamechanger in the market.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You know, I've been seeing this exact same comment on a lot of tech sites lately. Heck, there's quite a few of them on this article alone. At first, I was like "Welcome to what it was like for us Apple guys 5-10 years ago", (not that I ever posted that, I just thought it). But the more I think about it, I think it just means that the iPhone, iPod, Apple, etc., is going more mainstream. I don't think its a purposeful marketing strategy on anyones part (maybe it is and I'm too blinded to see), but more or less just a natural affect of its growing user market.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there was something coming out of MS, Verizon, Dell, or the likes that was interesting, I'm sure we would be flooded with the same kind of daily stories about it. But that's just not happening. Is it because they are not producing anything that people feel compelled to write about or is it because they know that if they write something that has an "i" in the headline, then they will generate hits. Not sure, but it's kind of interesting either way.
And on a side note, your "viral" theory can be applied to your comment as well. How do I know that all the "I'm getting sick of all the Apple" comments aren't made by paid shills or some viral marketing company trying to make Apple look un-cool or whatever. Sure it's a conspiracy theory, but it's no less of one than yours.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
See, that's the thing that Apple does so well. They don't invent things. They make other inventions actually work.
Through exhaustive design iteration and engineering, they develop ideas that are "nice on paper but useless in practice" into things that actually deliver on the invention's promise. From desktop UNIX to high-capacity music players to the mobile web browser, Apple invented none of these, yet they all sucked until Apple treated each one not as a feature problem but as a design and usability problem.
That's not invention. But if it isn't innovation, I don't know what is.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
If it indiscriminately terminates processes because the running app needs more memory, its not really practical to say it supports multitasking. You are just trying to redefine the accepted meaning of a multitasking smart phone to fit your fancy.
I might be biased though, I'm writing this from my HTC Hero with Android 1.6
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
But by this logic, almost every phone on the market multitasks - e.g., my phone's built in mp3 player can run at the same time as the built in email client.
The point is that it doesn't run more than one third party application at once (which really means it's a feature phone, not a smartphone - unless you use the broader definition of smartphone that would also include all feature phones). For years, when people talked about multitasking on phones, this is what they meant - it's only with the Iphone that suddenly the terms have to be used differently, to hide the things it doesn't do, and pretend it's a "smartphone"...
The bigger issue here is the narrow definition of "innovation"* so often used at /. and other tech-centric places, in which innovation only means innovation in a strictly technological/programming/hardware sense of the word. Behind this conceit lies the assumption that the only innovation which matters is purely technological innovation, and all of the other aspects, including making these innovations easy to use and accessible for wide range of people, are looked up on as somehow less than.
Hence the constantly renewing Year of Linux on the Desktop, which ignores the fact even the best-packaged Linux distros are at best a mixed bag when it comes to usability. Hence the constant claims that the iPhone/iPod will soon fall from its perch because its focus is ease of use and accessibility and not "innovation". Hence the boiling down of the wide variety of things which must go into a successful product as "cool" or "marketing", etc.
Apple's particular current genius lies in its ability to take technology and package it for use by a wide variety of people who don't care about the technology per se, and a big part of this is the iPod Touch/iPhone's UI, which makes it so easy even your grandmother can tweet away to her heart's content. And I think the reason Apple catches so much flack here, and elsewhere, is that by giving the "sheep" access to the technology, it take away from the n3rd world the special acclaim they have given themselves for having access to that technology.
That thought aside, the fact that so very few tech companies are able to do what Apple does should tell you how incredibly difficult it is to do, and why it is as innovative as any other tech achievement. Microsoft has, quite literally, money to burn and the best they can do is constantly bandage over the larger usability nightmares in Windows and Windows Mobile. Palm had to almost die before they came up with WebOS. Gnome and KDE have a (relatively) large installed base and access to talented people and the best they can come up with is a model which, sometimes, is easier to use than Windows. YOur average cel phone UI is a nightmare of menus, submenus, confusing icons and deeply-buried features. And on and on.
Making technology easy to use is incredibly difficult and every bit as innovative as writing a new OS or designing a new chip. And, while Apple has made, and will continue, to make stupid decisions, when it comes to what they do, they do do it so very well.
*There is a further conceit here, as to the true nature of innovation. There seems to be the idea that "true" innovators are the geniuses who come up with a wholly original idea, develop that idea, get it to market and retire to sleep on a bed of money. Look at this history of technology and you will see that almost never happens. Almost every innovation you can think of is either an improvement on an earlier idea or a new combination of previously established technology and ideas. Henry Ford, to pick one at random, didn't invent a damn thing. He took the idea of assembly lines and interchangeable parts from weapons manufacture, combined it with a newly available urban workforce and clever marketing (any color you want as long as its black) which was actually based on sound logistical planning, and created the modern car industry. It's the same with the computer industry. Progress is the story of incremental improvement and assembly of ideas and not sudden advances out of nowhere.
Or that's my $0.02
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Not true. Every modern multitasking operating system will, in a low-memory situation, terminate background processes in favour of foreground processes. Other multitasking operating systems will be reduced to the performance of a snail racing through molasses in an attempt to keep everything running.
Neither approach is great from an end-user perspective, but at least when you run out of memory and the kernel kills processes to free up resources, the entire system is usable. The alternative is to lose everything because the system is so unresponsive you are forced to reboot to regain control.
When you're talking about a device with extremely limited resources, with no chance of increasing those resources, somethings gonna give, and in this case, it means that in order for the phone to remain operational the kernel will kill background tasks. It's not a limitation or fault, its a design trade-off based on the limited resources available. In my opinion its the right choice.
If your point is that the iPhone has inadequate resources to be used as a handheld computer, well then, I'd agree but that's another trade-off that Apple made in order to create the device they wanted, and its nothing to do with the iPhone's ability to multitask.
I'd be willing to bet that your Hero has greater storage resources available, either as RAM or FLASH and is therefore using some of that as a page file/device.
Yes, I have an iPhone, and yes, I'm just waiting two months for the contract to expire and I'll be replacing it with a Nokia N900.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
The N900 looks amazing. I have a N95, and I'm quite pleased with it, but it's nearly 3 years behind now. I'll definitely be picking up a N900 as well once my contract is out. Full Linux, and Nokia even encourages you to get down into the system and do your own thing. I'm sure it won't catch on like the iPhone with all its trendiness, but the N900 really seems like a kickass piece of hardware and software to me.
And sure enough, just after I post about how people here seem to have no idea of the phone market, one comes along:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if there was something coming out of MS, Verizon, Dell, or the likes that was interesting
Well, what about all of the interesting phones that are coming from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola etc? Virtually zero coverage, it's been that way for years - so yes, I'm correcting you that you are wrong :)
Unless for some reason, there's something special about MS, Verizon, Dell and Apple that they deserve coverage, but not the existing phone companies?
As for viral, I don't think he's suggesting that it's planted by Apple shills - personally I don't, but the point is that Apple are very good at getting other companies and individuals to give them free advertising and hype. No shills needed.
"The ONLY selling point of the iPhone is the ecosystem. Brand loyalty, huge number of apps and huge installed base."
Our THREE main selling points are the the brand loyalty, the huge number of apps and the huge install base. And the web browser.
Damn! Damn! I'll come back in.
And SCSI. And FireWire.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
That's the point - there's nothing special about the Iphone, apart from being one in a long line of high end phones from various companies.
There are few other phones of this decade that have so revolutionized the marketplace. Ok, before the iPhone how many other captive touchscreen phones were there? How many phones with good browsers? With a large amount of apps? With a decent UI? The success of the iPhone kicked Android development into high gear, that in turn influenced major phones on every large network save for AT&T, the success of the iPhone also gave rise to millions of clone devices, or similar devices. About the only phone that I can think of with the same impact was the Motorola Razr (and perhaps that old monochrome Nokia phone with Snake on it and those exchangeable faceplates, but I think that came out before 2000)
But for some reason, even years later, all we hear is Iphone Iphone Iphone, and never about any of the interesting developments from major players like Nokia.
Um, perhaps because there hasn't been -any- interesting developments from Nokia? I mean, aside from the N900, most of Nokia's phones have been relatively uninspired. The other major players have been uninspiring, yeah, the BlackBerry is great if you want E-mail, but it relies on the aging BlackberryOS, still lacks polish, and their last major redesign (Storm) was a failure (yeah, Storm 2 is better, but the original Storm sucked), Windows Mobile is still crap. And Android is moving ahead but still lacks the polish/apps/support of some of the other phones.
If you want a browser, get the iPhone. If you want a phone that has promise, get Android. If you need something super-reliable get a BlackBerry. If you for some odd reason need an obscure Windows Mobile app get Windows Mobile.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Of course I'll probably be modded down for saying so, because debates on Apple stories are won by whoever has mod points (which is never me, incidentally), and not who speaks the facts.
Actually you'll probably be modded down for continually posting whiney little rants.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Apple II ?
Hypercard ?
Quicktime ?
Finalcut ?
Desktop publishing ?
All seem pretty innovative to me.
You do realise that the marketshare you linked to is for the US only? The situation looks different when considering the world smartphone market. Just sayin...
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Good band recognition and marketing qualify as technical innovation now?
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Nokia may have a larger marketshare, but not many of those phones are in use.
This is absolutely true. I know plenty of people who go out and spend their hard earned money on Nokia phones and then just throw them away.
Well there were a few reasons:
in browser stats Apple has -nearly half- of browser marketshare for smartphones
As another posted noted, those stats are only for the US. The US has been slow to take up mobile phones for several reasons, so it's not representative of the global market.
But anyway. I'd like to quickly address the assumption that mobile web browser stats can be used as a way to measure mobile phone market share. I have a Nokia 5220, a simple GSM/EDGE phone with an S40 interface. I rarely use the built-in (WAP?) browser because the screen is small and loading modern web/wap pages over EDGE is still quite slow. And it sometimes runs out of memory on complex pages. But I do however have quite a few Java apps that use the Internet to send and receive various bits of data. Through these apps I use up most of the credit on my pre-paid account. So just because the iPhone has shown up on some web browser stats probably doesn't mean as much as you think.
seriously, people. lern 2 spele. its a 'poll' not a 'pole' - i guess this is what we get out of 'no child left behind' :(
I'm no iPhone fan, but now you're claiming Linux isn't a multitasking OS. Linux also (optionally) kills apps just because of memory needs, the infamous OOM killer.
Android also kills background apps because of memory pressure, and does a miserable job of it sometimes but that's fixable. Its also Linux.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"The iPhone UI sucks a lot harder than WebOSs, and it is no better than Android.
The ONLY selling point of the iPhone is the ecosystem. Brand loyalty, huge number of apps and huge installed base. The phone itself is bland compared to all the other offerings(most new phones are essentially an iPhone plus a couple other features, like a high res display or a physical keyboard), and the software is about as advanced as Palm OS 4.0. I don't know how Apple can ship a product in 2009 that doesn't support multitasking."
The iPhone multitasks just fine. It doesn't allow third party apps to do so unless you jailbreak the phone. Had you actually used one at any point, you would know that, simply by launching the iPod app. It will run happily in the background while you do other things, as does the mail app, and SMS. As to how it multitasks is just an implementation. Saying it doesn't do so because it doesn't fit your ideal for managing background apps doesn't make it 'not so'. Many OS's will simply stop a low priority background thread if the user launches a foreground task that needs the memory. Personally, I don't know why folks are wanting multitasking outside of the Apple apps. I've never felt a need other than the supplied apps. Knowing the way things work in the windows world, every app you installed would find some Apple equivalent of the System tray to load useless tasks which suck your battery dry within an hour. I prefer less hassle. The only other client I would need it on is AIM, and they will happily forward it to me as a reply-able SMS, so the point is mute.
In order to get those huge number of apps and installed base, it has to have something other than those items you mentioned. I bought one, and I had owned no previous Apple products. Just saying it's popular due to 'fanboys' is patently ridiculous and tells me your more interested in just hating Apple rather than actually using one of their products. This whole 'fanboy' bit is silly. If you buy something, anything, chances are that you are a fan. Most people who hate a product don't buy it. Working in IT, I've met all kinds, and I wouldn't classify any of them as raving lunatics. They are all people who just like Windows PC's, or Macs. They don't rave. They don't pray at the Alter of Steve. They prefer a brand and they stick with it until they find something better.
The iPhone is popular because it's pretty much a PC in your pocket. You can actually browse the web on it, the UI is arguably better than the current crop of contenders since none of these iPhone 'killers' has actually done any slaying yet. All of these followers exist in an attempt to clone the iPhone UI, and none of them have succeeded fully yet (although some of them are getting close). The app limits on Android need to be resolved before they can be considered a serious contender.