LowEndMac has an in-depth article on the origins of one of Apple’s most elusive products: the Newton. “Sakoman’s end goal for Newton was to create a tablet computer priced about the same as a desktop computer. It would be the size of a folded A4 sheet of paper and would have cursive handwriting recognition and a special user interface. To run the enormously demanding handwriting recognition software, the tablet would have three AT&T Hobbit processors.” By the way, as most BeOS fans like myself know, AT&T’s Hobbit processor has been part of another elusive product.
After so many years of typeing I have noticed that I really can’t write anymore. I don’t think there is anyway a Newton could ever recognize my handwriting
Jokes aside I think the Newton was ver clever idea that still has merit, I wonder if the stigma of it will allow it to ever come back?
I must say that I never knew that the intent was to produce a mac killer (sort of how the Mac was the Apple killer), I knew that there was interest in creating “desktop” computers with the NewtonOS, something which never happened.
I own a Newton 2100, don’t use it as much anymore, but it still kicks but – not only on HWR, but the fact that it can do Bluetooth, WiFi, and almost anything that a “modern” PDA can do – even though it is more akin to a subnotebook tablet than a PDA.
I am really looking forward to the projects put forth by the ingenius minds of the NewtonTalk list, especially Einsten, which has as a goal to add color to the OS!
The only shortcoming of the newton at the moment, other than size, is storage. If storage were available (which it can with the emulator and some more work) applications such as video and music can be added to the newton! Now imagine the OS running ona 3G enabled smartphone hardware, add video capability….
Now I am dreaming, but obviously someone dreamt of Einstein and made it happen! 😉
http://hrmpf.com/wordpress/48/new-apple-patents
I don’t think the idea’s dead yet, even if the Newton is.
It’s in March 1996 that the first “Palm” Pilot came out. It was the most succesful PDA.
And it killed the Newton and just about everything else.
Now it’s Linux and Windows that are killing the Palm OS.
Things changes….
I disagree. Apple killed the Newton, not Palm. The sales figures were quite strong for both the Newton MessagePad 2100 and the eMate when they were axed. For that brief point in time they were in fact outselling the WinCE devices and were holding their own against Palm (at least according to all the sales figures that were getting tossed around back then). Newton was also its own independent company that had been spun off from Apple; Apple went out of its way to reabsorb it and then kill it. At least two other companies tried to purchase the various Newton technologies, and Apple declined.
Why did Apple kill the Newton? Well, the conspiracy theorists of course always insisted that it was part of that 150 million dollar deal with Microsoft. I personally suspect that the two bigger factors were that the eMate was seen to be cutting into the Mac laptop line and that Steve really just didn’t personally like the Newton, seeing it as being the brain child of the ones who ousted him from Apple not so long before.
The Newton had outstanding technology for its time; so good, that there still really is no true replacement for close to its price. I wrote a bit about this very fact on my blog (http://feneric.blogspot.com/2006/01/newton-technology-in-2006.html ) but the fact that there’s still an active user community (see details about the World Newton Conference at http://wwnc.newtontalk.net/ ) with lots of active development (read about the Einstein project http://www.kallisys.com/newton/einstein/ or the Newton book project I’m personally working on http://www.newtonslibrary.org/nbrdr/ ) should also help demonstrate that it has some good points going for it. Other would-be PDAs would do well to emulate some of its interface and features.
Part of what really still makes it stand out is that its interface was designed from the ground up to be used with a stylus. It’s actually practical to use a Newton while commuting in a standing-room only train.
I agree. Apple killed the Newton. I was was developing software on the Newton team at Apple when all this happended. I still have my Newton 130 and 2000. I still use it for taking notes because it beats writing on paper and not being able to perform text searches.
Apple was doing poorly financially, Sculley was turning the helm over to his second in command (Spindler) and some new multimedia hardware products were being developed (probably instead of the Newton.) The Newton marketing team was being dissolved and all of a sudden Andy Capp (the “vision” behind the Newton) left the company. That pretty much told the rest of us that the product was no longer of great interest. The Palm’s introduction and early success was probably one of the factors, but not the major one.
Apple was floundering and didn’t know what to do. It kept on “milking” the Mac technology for all it was worth but it wasn’t worth much anymore. After a lot of management shifting I was let go from Apple and in the News I saw Apple slowly throwing their best product out the door. What a shame — but then Apple was good at shooting itself in the foot 9 times out of 10 (Great technologies, but mediocre management, and some bad luck.)
there is a version of palmos that solves most of the shotcommings of the older one sitting around. problem is, its not backwards compatible with the older version, and therefor noone wants to use it (or so it seems).
hell, palmsource (or whatever the name is now that palmone have again become palm) is these days looking into using the linux kernel to power some kinda version of the palm os…
I like the idea of having the screen as big as a folded sheet of A4 paper, right now PDAs have such small screens that I hardly consider them anything more than geek toys, of course YMMV.
A tablet PC with the GUI to actually make it pleasant to work with. *Sigh* The Newton was so close to achieving that goal.
I recall as late as 1997 or 1999 reading an old copy of Mac World or whatever the MacintoshApple related magazine was at the time and drooling over the eMate as a tool for both writing and for reading original fiction downloaded from the web only to be told my my Apple enthusiast friend (who had I think two or three Macs) not to bother with them because Apple had discontinued all support and basically abandonned its users so it wouldn’t be worth even trying to find a used unit. I was also uncertainas to how I was supposed to get fiction or my own writings from the device onto paper or to and from a floppy.
I ended up buying a Sharp Wizard 770 that I loved to death for the next few years before eventually buying an iPaq. These days I’m using a Palm and trying to find something better than going back to the WinCE OS when my Palm finally goes. I’m sincerely hoping that we eventually see some real improvements in battery life down the road or that someone at Microsoft takes the latest Windows MobileWindows CE.Net and gives it a makeover then fits it into a updated Jupiter class device…
Does anyone here rememeber the Jupiters? I wish I’d saved my money and bought one of the HP 820s or a Sharp Mobilon Pro but I was waiting for the next revisions and hoping for the prices to come down and I wanted to see what if any software had been ported over. The fugly washed out colors didn’t do the devices any favors either at the time.
–bornagainpenguin (who still lusts even after all these years for a Jupiter)
its the second time i read about a apple project, and its the second time it sounds like a corporation out of control.
and on top of it all the handwriting code in newton was from a unknown russian coder?