Newton Poetry

One possible outcome of the Apple tablet rumors.

I’d buy it.

[Via Joy of Tech.]

Foyer scrota and severe heavers ago our flashovers brought force on thy cosmetician a new notion conceives in lubricate and deducted to the prosecution that all men are crated quail.

From Clark Humphrey’s Misc Media, circa 1994. His Newton Poetry version of the Gettsyburg Address comes about a third of the way down while discussing Newton’s handwriting recognition.

“It may not be able to make an exact digital version of what you write on it,” Humphrey says, “but it can turn it into computer-assisted cut-up poetry!”

In fact, that’s how I started Newton Poetry – take a random piece of poetry, write it into my MP110, and type down whatever came out.

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.

“To be useful as a PDA, the Newton should anyway be always close. It is instant on, and the Notepad is capturing notes indexed by time. As a recording device, the Newton is unbeatable, and it has some pretty obvious advantages over the index card method: Backups are possible, storage is almost infinite, you can carry the whole system with you all the time, and you can search and extract more easily.”

– Eckhart Köppen, from the NewtonTalk list.

“It is easy to cite examples where less capable products have superseded more capable products. My favorite example of that is PDAs. I still have three classic PDAs: HP200LX, Newton MessagePad 2100, and Psion Revo. All of these have been unavailable for a decade or more, yet in many ways each has features that have been unmatched in newer and ‘better’ products.”

– Michael Anderson at Gear Diary, on the “crapification” of products – or how we’re setting for “good enough.”

Indeed.

[Via John from NewtonTalk.]

“The Newton MessagePad 2100 is in my top 10 mobile devices of all time, and it ran on a 167 MHz ARM CPU and had about 1 MB of internal storage. There are aspects of it (particularly the Notepad) which remain unmatched in terms of usability.”

– Steven Frank, from stevenf.com, on the ideal mobile device.

PowerbookMedic takes apart a Newton MessagePad:

If the iPhone 3GS had parents, its father would be the iPhone 3G, and its mother would be the 1st Gen iPhone. If it had a Grandma, that would unequivocally have to be the Apple Newton. We’ve done teardown videos on all of the iPhone models, and so it seemed only logical (and respectful) to give the Newton the same honor.

A few things struck me about this video: the infomercial music, the rate of unscrewing screws (what, no fast forward?), and the brave use of a soldering iron. Maybe it’s early, but taking a red-hot poker to my Newton is a bit too advanced for me.

Anyway, a good how-to if you feel like getting your hands dirty.

[Via NewtonTalk.]

For probably one of the most fascinating explorations of every day uses for your Newton, visit the conversation kicked off by Chris C. at the NewtonTalk list (hit the “Next in thread” link to go from e-mail to e-mail), called “A Day in the life of…”

For a down-and-dirty view, see Don Zahniser’s story. He talks about running a small farm and using Dateman (for to-dos), Notes (grocery lists and garden yields), Works, and more.

Morgan Aldridge has a good breakdown, too, showing which apps he uses throughout the day – everything from PocketMoney to Bills To Pay.

The entire thread is great for discovering apps you’ve never tried out, and practical uses for them in day-to-day life. I found a few I want to try. Browse around the United Network of Newton Archives (UNNA.org) to download some of the apps.

Back when I used my Newton for personal information management (PIM) and notes management, I stuck to the basics like Notes, Dates, To-Dos, and a few games here and there. That’s what is nice about the Newton: you can pick it up and use it as-is.

[Via NewtonTalk.]

“The Commodore Amiga was visionary; so was the Apple Newton. Both devices now share exalted status in the ranks of cult classic also rans, whirligigs which were ahead of their time or better than competitors’ products but which ultimately still lost their battles for market supremacy. Being first out the gate doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be the winning horse in the Derby.”

– Brian from Unqualified.org, on eBook ecosystems.