Newton Poetry

Edible Apple has a great look back at the original Apple-designed tablet device – not a computer, but more of an input mechanism like today’s Wacom tablets.

Released in 1979, during the Apple II era, the $650 Graphics Tablet had issues upon release:

The Graphics Tablet, however, wasn’t exactly a runaway hit as it was subsequently discontinued when the FCC found that it caused radio frequency interference problems.

Apple went back to the drawing board, and in 1983, it released a second iteration of the graphics tablet, which was right around the time when the Apple IIe was in production.

Check out the rest of Edible Apple’s post for more great pictures.

[Via Dave Caolo, via Splorp.]

In my original retro Apple.com post, I asked for others to take memorable moments in Apple’s history and mockup a web site.

Matt Pearce did just that, as you can see, making five total Apple.com homepages at different points in history. Particularly notable: an Apple I version with the original Apple Computer logo.

[Via Retro Maccast.]

Here’s the tablet before the tablet.

With all this talk of a tablet-type device set to descend from the foggy Olympus of Cupertino, I thought it might help to look back at Apple’s first flat computing device.

Yes, about 17 years ago Apple Computer released the original Newton MessagePad (OMP, or MessagePad 100). In August 1993, the company introduced a crude version of then-CEO John Sculley’s “Knowledge Navigator” concept. It was arguably the first personal digital assistant.

So I dreamed up what Apple.com might have looked like at the Newton’s launch in 1993, 10 years after my original retro Apple.com site featuring the Lisa in 1983.

This comes at the tail-end of the John Sculley era, right before the Mac PowerPC era, in the murky past when System 7 roamed the landscape and the PowerBook was changing the way we viewed laptop computers.

Behind the scenes, Apple was in full tablet mode. They saw it as a potential post-Mac future.

Back on the ground, Apple was having trouble seeing its dream become a reality. The OMP’s launch was plagued with problems, lowered expectations, and tragedy. But the idea – that you could do your computing and personal data management on the go – became reality, and it required a stylus.

Like the iPhone lacking its App Store, the Newton wasn’t fully operational at its August 1993 launch. Handwriting recognition was still iffy, and NewtonMail wasn’t operational yet. Some would argue that the Newton platform didn’t reach its true potential until the Newton OS 2.0 was released and the MessagePad 2×00 series came around. By then, however, the Newton brand had been stained, and the PDA line was finally killed by Steve Jobs in 1997.

For this retro Apple.com, I bowed to popular demand and used Apple’s skinny version of Garamond. I much prefer the new Myriad variation Apple uses, but some said the Garamond would look more authentic. So here it is.

The site also shows what was happening in the Apple ecosystem in 1993: the Mac TV would be released later in the year, the Power CD (both a music CD player and a CD-ROM for Macs) was the newest gadget, and capable Macs like the affordable LC III ruled the Macintosh world.

With all the talk of a rumored tablet, let’s not forget that, once upon a time, Apple had a tablet-style computer that ran apps, held ebooks, let you check e-mail, and managed your personal information. Now we use smartphones, but at the time the PDA was the closest thing to a tablet we could get.

Also remember: while the Apple press and public are busy waiting for some rumored tablet, there’s a big group of people out there using the original Apple tablet.

Yes, we know – everyone hated the iMac puck mouse/Newton/Mac TV/Pippin. There’s no more need to include it in a “Top # Apple Mistakes” list anymore.

For the past few years, for as long as I’ve been writing Newton Poetry, these “worst of” lists have cropped up from time to time. Most of them mention a similar combination of the above Apple “mistake” products. Chances are, each list will feature the same disliked Apple products as every other what-were-they-thinking list.

It’s a sham, and it’s annoying.

First, the whole “top 10” list is simply an easy way to be Dugg and Stumbled Upon. I should know – I’m guilty of it myself. The difference is that I didn’t have to browse through other sites, copy their content, and paste it into the site. Every blog and site these days has to have their own iteration of the “worst of” list. Sure, each post probably generates a bit of traffic and tons of comments. The result, however, is that the site ends up looking desperate and silly.

Second, these posts are unoriginal in the extreme. In fact, it’s easy to predict what products will be featured in any given list. Here’s a quick rundown of Apple products you should have never purchased, just off the top of my head:

1. Apple iMac hockey puck mouse
2. Some Apple Newton MessagePad or eMate
3. Apple/Bandai Pippin
4. Mac TV
5. Mac Portable
6. PowerMac G4 Cube
7. Apple III
8. Apple Lisa
9. Some random Performa or LC model
10. 20th Anniversary Mac

Funny that no one mentions the Apple Hi Fi or, as of yet, the Apple TV. Perhaps in a few years those products will be included, too.

Here’s the point: it’s as if, when tech blogs are pressed for fresh content, they generate some unoriginal, macabre list of Apple failures and run it as a “top 10” post. Voila – instant page views.

Us Apple fans, and especially us Newton fans, deserve better in-depth analysis than what we all ready know to be true. I hope that Apple fans see past such drivel, and skip the link on Macsurfer.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” our collective wisdom should tell these sites. “Get a goddamn life.”

No, Apple’s not perfect, and yes, we remember the devil-spawned puck mouse. Can we move on?

There for a while, I was reporting on every damned list that included the Newton. My knee-jerk reaction was outrage, of course, but after a while that outrage turned into a passive frustration. Now, it’s just annoying.

Because it keeps happening. Like clockwork.

Sure, we can argue all day about whether the Newton platform was a failure. And we could have some yucks over how clunky (yet beautiful) the Cube really was.

But we only need to have those conversations once or twice. Not every week.

Shame on the blogs that run these “worst of” posts, and shame, especially, to those high-traffic sites that have the resources and talent to generate perfectly good and suitably worthwhile content.

Don’t resort to everyone’s-doing-it posts like these. You ought to know better.

Interesting: Michael Tchao, a member of the ol’ Apple Newton MessagePad team, is coming back to Apple.

Tchao was responsible for selling the crazy idea of a handheld computing device to then-Apple president John Sculley.

Says The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

If you wanted to start doing a bit of speculating, it’s interesting to note that Tchao was part of the team that was responsible for Apple’s first tablet computer.

Funny how a Newton no longer qualifies as a PDA. With all the rumors, everyone wants to call it a “tablet.”

Browsing through eMate battery and recharging articles, I came across Apple’s Power On Procedure After Extended Storage support post. It goes on to describe how to reset your eMate 300 if the battery fails to show a correct charge, and quotes from the eMate 300 User’s Manual.

It’s amazing to me that Apple still hosts these how-tos from, what, 12 years ago? I’ve found a few Newton-related articles this way, and all of them have been helpful.

None of the articles are updated by Apple anymore, of course. But the fact that Apple still hosts them is a benefit to the Newton community – especially new MessagePad and eMate users who are trying to get the basics down.

Maybe a full linked list, with all the support posts, would be helpful.

Imagine, if you will, an Apple Computer before the Macintosh, before the iPod, before the iPhone – shucks, before Steve Jobs was kicked out and brought back for Apple’s sprint to success.

This is Apple in the year 1983. It was, says Ted Friedman, a rough year:

In any case, by 1983, Apple was in danger. Their competitors in the emerging PC industry had been joined by IBM. Purchasers who’d chosen Apple out of necessity were relieved to be able to turn now to Big Blue. Apple’s first attempt at a next-generation product that could re-establish the company’s pre-eminence was the Lisa. A $10,000 computer designed for the business market, it was a flop.

Steve Jobs gives a keynote that warns of the danger of IBM’s dominance. A former soda-pop president named John Sculley comes on board. Apple sells its millionth Apple II computer.

And then we all know what happens in 1984.

I’m fascinated by how Apple’s web site has changed over the years. And because it has that iconic design, often copied, I thought it’d be cool to use it as a time-traveling template to take a peek into the past.

So with some randomly-available product pics and a bit of PhotoShop, I crafted the above Apple.com mockup as it may have appeared in the year 1983. It’s not accurate, of course, because I took some embellishments on the iPhone prototype and the fact that some sort of World Wide Wide existed during the Reagan administration.

Whatever. It was me having a bit of fun with some Apple history.

What would be cool is if someone took a snapshot of Apple.com as it would appear throughout the years before it’s actual launch in 1996. For instance, I’d love to see what the homepage would’ve looked like on the Newton’s launch day, or the first PowerBook, or System 7.

In the meantime, enjoy what could have been.

The Cult of Mac pointed me to a cool t-shirt design with classic Macs (now that G3s can be considered “classic”). What’s neat is that I have all three Macs on the shirt.

It also got me thinking about my growing collection of Mac shirts. As soon as I saw the Exploded 128 shirt, I had to have it. And now I’m in a group with a bunch of other nerdy Mac hippies wearing some other guy’s shirt (here’s me with mine).

I used to have one of these beauties, but Cafe Press doesn’t seem to make shirts that fit me. They’re either too big or too small. Still, it was a fun shirt to wear in public.

Insanely Great Tees makes some classic Mac t-shirts, and I really thought about springing for one of FastMac’s anniversary shirts.

Like the white Apple sticker on my rear windshield, Apple shirts always make for great conversation. There’s something smug in proudly displaying your computing preference across your OS X-powered chest. And why not? Everyone thinks Mac users are arrogant anyway.

If you did it right, you could wear a different Apple shirt each day of the week.

Macworld has a four-part “How green is Apple?” series going, exploring the company’s e-waste practices and altruistic motivations.

Many environmental groups, like Greenpeace, say its hard to rate Apple effectively when they’re so damn secretive:

Yet Apple earned just 4.7 points out of a possible 10—dramatically lower than competitors Samsung and Nokia. That low score was largely due to Apple’s reluctance to open up more about the environmental impact of its overall corporate operations. “They could elevate their score quite easily with just a couple of fixes,” says Greenpeace’s Harrell. “They could do a greenhouse-gas inventory of their supply chain, which they probably have done. But they haven’t talked about it.”

As someone who deals with e-waste on a regular basis, I’ve had my own ethical struggle with Apple’s environmental practices. But it’s this kind of pressure, and pressure from their customers, that will ultimately make Apple more open about its “green” behavior.

[Via Macsurfer.]

Since you all were nice enough to share a little bit about yourselves last week, it’s my turn.

My name is Dave Lawrence. I’m a 27-year-old communications specialist for a local credit union in my hometown of Jackson, MI – a smallish city along the I-94 corridor about an hour and a half west of Detroit.

I graduated with a degree in English/journalism from Adrian College and came back home to find my job.

While I worked with Macs at the campus newspaper, I didn’t get serious about them until the winter of 2005, when I bought my first computer – and first Mac: an iBook G4. Since then, I haven’t looked back. My collection has grown to include an iBook G3 clamshell, an iMac G3, two Mac SEs, a PowerMac G4, an iMac G4, and – most recently – a PowerMac G3.

My first Newton came in December 2006, and was more or less something to mess around with. I felt you can’t have a truly righteous Apple collection without a Newton, so I bought a MessagePad 110. Later, in the fall of 2007, I launched Newton Poetry. I also have an eMate.

Besides Macs and Newtons, I love to travel, read, watch “The Office,” head out on the town with friends, and get involved in my community. I’m in a local Rotary club, am on the board for a recycling non-profit, and get involved in politics whenever I can.

I’ve made several life-changing trips in the past few years, including driving down Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, taking the northern route from Michigan to Seattle, and exploring Revolutionary War sites in New England. This summer, my big trip will include a cross-Canada drive to Vancouver for the Worldwide Newton Conference.

I do Newton Poetry because the Newton community fascinates me, and the device is so much fun to use. There’s still an audience out there who craves information about the Newton – how to make it work, how to connect it with modern Macs, where the Newton ideal will take us in the years ahead.

Also, I love to fiddle with computers and projects, and Newton Poetry gives me an outlet to write about those projects. What I found was that people who, say, want to install an Airport card in their iBook, like to have help as they do it. As a result, that post is one of my most popular.

There’s tons more about me, of course, so feel free to browse my personal blog, follow me on Twitter, or hang on and see where else Newton Poetry takes us.