Newton Poetry

Back in January, when the iPhone was first announced, Leander Kahney did a roundup of what Newton users thought of the iPhone.

Newton users, he said, were still angry at Steve Jobs for killing the Newton:

But in the meantime, they’ve kept the platform very much alive and technologically current…Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of active Newton users, the Newton supports things like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and memory cards. It can synchronize with OS X and iTunes, just like an iPod.

Albert Muniz said, “”It fails to include a key part of the Newton’s soul – handwriting recognition.”

Plus, says NewtonSales owner, Marsh Man, the iPhone’s constant thirst for power makes it lag behind the Newton in stamina: “The battery life with a refurbished battery pack will enable you to use this device for 40+ hours on a single charge, making it something a student could use for a couple of weeks or more in class taking notes before having to worry about charging the device.”

Keep in mind, this was back in January. I wonder if any thoughts have changed since summer, when the iPhone was released.

Here’s further proof, from Cult of Mac.

Turns out the Pogo Stylus is stealing your finger’s thunder, if you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user. For $25, you too can have a chubby stylus that looks a heckuva lot less elegant than us Newton users enjoy.

Hats off to the Pogo folks for thinking of this: the commentors at Cult of Mac love the idea of a stylus just for those who suffer through winter, like we’re doing right now in Michigan.

Some have already wondered if the iPod Touch, and iPhone, are becoming the Newton replacements (see “Is the iPod Touch the new Newton“), but Cult of Mac gives it their “Pointless Product” alert. I don’t see why; sure, the whole dynamic idea of the iPhone, according to Steve Jobs, is its lack of stylus. But for those with fingers that don’t handle small objects so well, this could be a lifesaver. And I can see those of us in the Midwest needing a stylus just so we wouldn’t have to take our gloves off.

The nice thing about the Newton was the need for just a stylus. Because it recognized handwriting, there was no need for a keyboard (even though they did exist, and were useful).

Then again, we could forget the stylus and just start using an iBlade.

Bsams.net seems to think so:

The Newton was marketed as a pda. While the Ipod touch is not. The third party apps have opened up the Ipod touch into much more than a pda. Now, with Apple issuing a development kit to make official third party software for the Ipod touch and Iphone, the barrier between media player and pda is much more grey.

To heck with a phone: if all you want to do is organize your life and listen to music, the Touch is the way to go. And no stylus needed, right?

Turns out the playa-hatas over at Amazon have launched an e-book reader, named “Kindle.”

Only $399 (the price of an iPhone), high-res (“just like real paper!”), no syncing required, cheaper prices for books ($9.99), no service plans to worry about – the thing seems like a mixed blessing.

The no-syncing part is really interesting, since you don’t need to be at home with your computer to buy a book – kind of like what Apple is doing with the iPod Touch. That’s cool. So is the fact that you don’t have to carry around a shit-ton of books to read them – just this…thing.

So, again, the Newton delivers first. PDAs, portable computers, and now eBooks.

Fake Steve Jobs has an interesting take:

I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t it be just kick-ass super duper if, say, Apple came along and finally delivered the ultimate product in this category? Because you just know if we did it the thing would look gorgeous and have a beautiful feature set and would just kick everyone’s ass.

And there’s already a comparison with the iPhone.

But seriously, lots of luck Amazon. You don’t have a beautiful machine, but any way to promote reading is a good thing.

But a quick note: we’d add another sticker there.

Rhymes with “Putin.”

> Courtesy Fake Steve Jobs.

Cult of Mac had an interesting refresher on Wired’s “101 Ways to save Apple” story that ran in 1997.

Here’s number 15:

15. Dump (or outsource) the Newton, eMate, digital cameras, and scanners.

Huh.  How about that.  Interesting on number 59:

59. Invest heavily in Newton technology, which is one area where Microsoft can’t touch you. Build voice recognition and better gesture recognition into Newton, making a new environment for desktop, laptop, and palmtop Macs. Newton can also be the basis of a new generation of embedded systems, from cash registers to kiosks.

So which was it?  Apple, at the time, was swimming in a sea of “we don’t know what the hell we are.”  If they had stuck to the Newton and really ran with it, it could’ve been Apple’s iPod before there was an iPod.  Let’s face it – the iPod helped save Apple.  Now look what the iPhone is doing.

Speaking of which – how prophetic:

31. Build a PDA for less than $250 that actually does something: a) cellular email b) 56-channel TV c) Internet phone.

Thanks to Cult of Mac for reminding us of Apple’s conflicted frame of mind about the MessagePad.