Newton Poetry

Blake Patterson at Byte Cellar:

Once the App Store went live, TouchArcade quickly became a large and active community for iOS gamers, and it’s done nothing but grow ever since. It’s wonderful to finally have the opportunity to make TouchArcade my entire professional focus and do the work that I so enjoy, having been an avid gamer my entire life.

Congratulations to Blake for heading up TouchArcade full time. It’s the best iOS gaming site out there, with reviews on everything, and Blake has a passion for this stuff.

I got to interview Blake back in the early days, as TouchArcade was getting off the ground. I give a lot of credit to him for helping me out in the early days of Newton Poetry; Blake gave me a lot of pointers to get things started, and I appreciate it very much.

It’s rough writing about the Newton. There are only a few things that pop up, here and there, that are considered “news” in the MessagePad community. Like fans of the Amiga or Commodore, Newton users try to relive the glory days and make their devices applicable to modern times.

Though with the Newton, it’s fun. It’s such a sweet platform.

As far as I knew, there was only me and Tony Kan out there blogging at least semi-regularly about the Newton. But sometimes other sites pop up on the radar.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog often posts news and updates on happenings in the Newton community – more than the regular, echo-chamber type posts that appear every where else.

Every once in a while, something random will pop up. Like High Caffeine Content, a blog from Irish iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith, creator of Lights Off and Chalk, an upcoming Twitter client.

There’s also Johs Burker and his Blog of Musings. Burker works in education and uses his MP2100 and eMate for real life stuff, like calculating gas mileage and computing on the road. His post on getting RemoteCam working on his eMate is amazing.

As for blogs that look like Newtons, you can’t beat Thomas Brand’s excellent Egg Freckles blog. It really speaks for itself.

The Newton platform attracts die-hards, hobbyists, and everyone in between. It’s nice to see some of those folks writing about their experiences. As more new technologies are released, leave it to the MessagePad user to figure out a way to make it work with Apple’s PDA.

If you’re a Newton blogger, or you know of someone who is, let me know.