It wasn’t the Newton’s birthday, but our good friend the MessagePad did get a nod in Ars Technica’s Mac anniversary lineup this weekend.
Erica Sadun listed the Newton as one of the “best Macs” – even though it’s not a Mac. The fun part, she says, was development with NewtonScript:
It was simple, it was elegant, it was sexy. Offering objects and database “soups,” it was amazingly flexible to work with and a joy to program.
Over at Low End Mac, Tom Hormby gives us a historical view of the platform. The long and in-depth essay shows that, like the Macintosh, the Newton had its own stories of drama, success, and failure. A great read.
And for once, the Newton MessagePad makes it onto a good list: Time’s Most Influential Gadgets and Gizmos. Thanks, Time, for giving the Newton the respect it gets nowhere else. A “gizmo” is a step up from pegging the Newton as a “colossal waste of time, money, and energy.”
It sure is nice for the Newton platform to get onto a good Top 10 list rather than a “10 worst flops of all time list”. But I really don’t like the way the iPhone is compared to Newton devices. There are several differences. For one, the Newton platform was an open platform and it was an innovation. Please, people, stop comparing them. We’re tired of seeing it all the time.
Posted by Matej Horvat on January 27th, 2009.
Nice that Newton’s still getting press. As it happens I also posted about it, well the eMate at least, today.
Posted by Magnus on January 27th, 2009.
@magnus: you’ve got a great site there. Where’d you get your wireless card?
Posted by davelawrence8 on January 27th, 2009.