Newton Poetry

It’s just a tad early to be crowning the “greatest gadget” of this century, don’t you think CNet?

Before the iMac, computers were beige. Beige. That might have been fine in the early ’80s, but so were corduroy trousers and sandals with socks and you wouldn’t want to see them in your living room now. And that’s what’s important about the iMac: it’s the machine that made the world at large realise you can have a computer and not have to hide it. It was — and still is — the only computer that’s genuinely sexy.

You’ll get no arguments from me there. But perhaps the iMac is the greatest of the last century, since it was released in the late ’90s?

And as much as I love me some iMac, it’s hard not to think of the iPod or iPhone as the gadget of the 2000s. What sold more? Which had the bigger impact on the industry it landed in? What wiped the slate clean and truly innovated?

The iMac is still a Mac. Internally, and software-wise, it’s no different than a Mac Mini, Mac Pro, or Macbook. For that matter, the original iMac was little different from the Mac SEs before it other than tech specs and software. All-in-ones, even stylish ones, were nothing new in 1998.

Instead of winning some arbitrary contest, the iMac should be known as the Mac that launched Apple’s resurrection. After the original Bondi Blue, everything changed. It was Apple’s first big hit after Steve Jobs returned. For that, it deserves a lot of praise – but certainly not some goofy, arbitrary award from CNet.

Evernote CEO Phil Libin, over at ReadWriteWeb:

So the original idea really started in the Newton days. Back then it was just a device, but it grew to be more of a service that would let you keep all of your memories. [It would] just remember everything.

…They started [Evernote] with this idea of giving everyone a better brain, giving everyone a perfect memory.

This interview has made the rounds, but this idea of the Newton as a ubiquitous capture device always stuck with me – because that’s exactly how I used mine.

I think of the time I’m in a big book store and I need to remember a certain book to check up on later. Whip out the Newton, scribble a note to myself, file it for later, and then never have to Spotlight-search my brain to remember what it was. The MessagePad’s usefulness was immediately apparent to a absent-minded professor like me.

Some people swear by a simple notepad and pen, or by a stack of index cards in their back pocket. For tech geeks, the Newton let you simulate that paper-and-pen experience but with electrons.

If you’re like me, you need something to capture all that random input throughout the day. Lately, that something has been Simplenote, along with my iPhone’s camera. The nice thing about these electronic methods of capture is that their capture-ability is close enough to infinite to be infinite. With pens and paper, you run out of ink and notepads, or you collect and waste actual material resources. I used to use little scraps of paper at work to collect thoughts and notes, and it quickly got out of hand. By storing it electronically, in flash memory somewhere, it just collects and collects without taking up real, physical space.

Newtons and iPhones can lose their charge, of course, or get their brains wiped out (which is catastrophic, but a good you-need-a-backup-strategy example). Still, using Simplenote feels like I’m using an infinite, curved alternate dimension to store reminders and notes.

The Newton did the job fantastically, too, because it felt like you were storing an infinite amount of scrap pieces of paper (that went in the trash when you deleted them!). So it’s no surprise that an idea as great as Evernote sprang from the Newton concept.

[Via Forkbomber.]

Riccardo Mori at System Folder wondered if using a handy tool like Simplenote was possible on a classic Mac:

Things start getting trickier if you’re on a Mac with older versions of the Mac OS. I couldn’t do tests with Mac OS 8.5/8.6, though I suspect that if you have a capable Mac and a suitable version of iCab or Opera (or maybe even Internet Explorer 5), you could still be able to access the Simplenote Web interface.

Having set up my dream dual Mac OS 8.6/9.2 system, it was possible to test Mori’s suspicion.

Using my PowerMac G3 running OS 8.6 and the latest build of Classilla, with JavaScript turned on, I could access Simplenote’s interface. The trick, I thought, would be if it was a useful interface. So I typed in an easily-checked addition to my grocery list:

The note, “Try out SImplenote on OS 8.6,” did, indeed, appear on my OS X 10.6 version of Safari – synced and ready for action:

The other browsers? Internet Explorer 5.1 on the PowerMac threw up a Typekit certificate error and wouldn’t let me past the login screen. iCab 3.0.5 loaded the login screen fine, and even showed the basic outline of the notes page (posting the Fusion ad, for instance – something Classilla wouldn’t do until I turned on JavaScript), but failed to load any actual notes. When I tried creating a new note in the text entry field, it didn’t send the note back to the server.

Both Opera 5 and 6 treated Simplenote much like iCab did (above), loading an empty text field for a new note, but nothing else. And the formatting looked awful.

Classilla, it seems, is the Simplenote trophy winner on Mac OS 8.6 – a good thing to keep in mind for the lowend Mac users out there who want to sync notes between their Mac and iPhone or iPad.

Ryan Vetter at Liquidpubs:

Since the Macintosh division, as well as many others at Apple, saw the Newton as something that could very well make desktop computers extinct, they decided to develop a Newton-like Mac. Something that could act like a portable, slate-like device. But, unlike the Newton, these devices would run Mac software, with a full Mac operating system, and work with a keyboard and mouse. It was a bridge between the original Macintosh and the new, mobile powerhouse: the Newton.

What proceeds this is a fascinating tour of Apple’s history designing tablet computers – and not just the Newton, but tablet-style Apple IIs and Macs as well.

Reading through this, you get the impression that the folks at Apple have been obsessed with portables for a very long time. All these years later, it’s what the company is best know for.

[Via Minimal Mac.]

Mac software geniuses Panic posted some quick little notes about Transmit 4 on their blog, and one of those little ditties was how to customize the icon for each connection. They provide 16 icons to get you started, but also offered a tip on an Iconfactory set.

Here’s what my customized Transmit icons look like:

Pretty cool, especially considering The hello Show is a classic Mac podcast (sort of), and the Newton Poetry icon is a little eMate. These come from the excellent World of Aqua icon set by Dave Brasgalla, dating from 2001. The set includes all kinds of great semi-classic (G4 era) hardware, along with a few Newtons:

Brasgalla made a whole series of these, some including the best hardware Apple’s made, and they all take you back to the early days of OS X.

I’ve never been a big icon customizer, but playing around with Transmit and setting some custom icons for things like my USB thumb drive and even Automator and AppleScript applications has been a lot of fun.

“How many Apple products? Wow, I don’t know if I can account for them all. Practically one of everything. And I’m not exaggerating. Yes, even a Newton.

I can tell you how many PC’s I’ve owned: Zero.”

– Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3, in an interview at Cult of Mac.

Peter Merholz reminds us the the dominant computer metaphor for the last 40 years has been the desktop, and it was Apple that brought that idea – files, documents, a trash can – to the masses.

Since 1984, we’ve seen other metaphors come along. The Newton operated on a kind of notepad metaphor – or an electronic personal organizer and day planner. Now, OS X 10.7 Lion, by way of iOS, gives us another way to interact with our files and windows: Launchpad.

From there to here, the desktop has been a good transition metaphor. Take what people know (working in an office, dealing with folders) and put it on a screen. Now we’re getting more abstract as the PC industry matures, and as we add more functionality to our machines.

[Via Daring Fireball.]

The Newton MessagePad is known for a few things: fast boot time, and long battery life.

Mac|Life challenged one of those features with the new 11″ MacBook Air, whose SSD allows for faster wake time. The results, as you can see above, were pretty stellar: both devices woke up lightning quick.

For years now, with the iPod, iPad, and the newer MacBooks, Apple has engineered ways to keep batteries lasting longer. Now that they’ve got that pretty well down, maybe they’ll concentrate on faster boot and wake times.

Pop in a few AAs into a Newton and it could last for weeks. Combine that kind of battery life with a faster boot time, and you’ve got one heckuva device.

Notice something in Adobe Acrobat 9’s settings here? Let me zoom in:

Maybe these little alert graphics look familiar? Let’s refresh our memories, from way back in pre-OS X days:

Remember this is 2010. Now that’s timeless design, amiright?

Not sure what, exactly, this means – but it’s the long-awaited return of The hello Show, starring David and me.

No guess, no big Apple news (yet). Just yackin’ about stuff we have no inside knowledge of, but plenty of opinions about.

Listen. Subscribe. Rate us on iTunes. All that good stuff.

Speaking of podcasts: My pal Andrew interviewed me over at his My Internet Dinner with Andrew series. We talked for two hours about traveling, Macs, work, wrestling, and tons more – and Andrew only put half of it in his recording. We’re still friends, though.