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Apple Newton
Newton was Apple's flawed attempt at the PDA -- full of awkward, dysfunctional design touches, and a footprint roughly the size of...a footprint. Though the handwriting recognition software -- which was innovative at the time -- improved slightly over the Newton's six years of development from 1993-1998, it still required users to spend valuable time attempting to transcribe words like "the" into text. The Newton wasn't cheap, either -- the most expensive model cost a cool $1000, in addition to many hours of frustration. Though it's sometimes hailed for paving the way for the widely successful Palm Pilot, that's more of a nice afterthought than anything. In fact, it sold so poorly that it nearly destroyed Apple (these were the pre-iMac, pre-Steve-Jobs-return days, after all). Nostalgia and Apple design aside, the truth is that the Newton Message Pad was a good idea gone horribly wrong.
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Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsTony DouglasAug 13th 2008 8:10AM
With all due respect ... tosh. As a daily user of the Newton to this day, it's still the best of all the handheld devices for taking to meetings and taking notes. It's probably the last device to really challenge what we do with computers and why we do them the way we do - which is probably why people *still* don't get it.
TomAug 13th 2008 8:52AM
I totally agree with the previous post, you have this all wrong, the Newton was LOVED by apple customers. We thought this was an amazing piece of equipment and "some" of the features it has are far superior to current PDAs.
UnknownAug 31st 2008 5:00AM
i agree with you, the most important feature is that it have an apple logo
WmAug 13th 2008 12:25PM
I was a fantastic device, well ahead of its time when Microsoft machines were still giant tan boxes with green screens. Even the X-file FBI agents used Newtons!
Alvaro CovarrubiasSep 2nd 2008 7:40AM
The above responses show why Apple products are either loved or hated; no in-between. I have never been able to comprehend Apple's rationale behind their navigation and applications. Computers, Newton, iPod and now the iPhone ..... it seems I have to pay highly for design yet I can never learn how to use them properly. So I stay clear of them.
G. SilvestriSep 2nd 2008 9:56AM
I loved my newton. I used it for my business every day. I took notes at meetings, I faxed from my cell. I wrote out contracts and invoices etc. It was great for a person who was always out of town.... smaller than a lap top!
Jeff KnightSep 2nd 2008 1:03PM
Sorry Evan...but you have no clue what you are talking about. Apple dropping the Newton is the 2nd biggest mistake they ever made. (Not licensing their OS was No. 1). All the handhelds would all be Apples right now and it was way ahead of it's time. Unless you actually used one and used it for personal use and business..then you have no clue what you are talking about. As the first poster said...even today it is the best PDA out there...and trying to wrote "the" is about as simplistic as it gets..you could actually wtire on it "schedule a meeting with Joe at noon tomorrow" and it would insert a meeting into your schedule for tomorrows date and put in all the information about Joe from your rolodex into the meeting alos...and it all ran on 2 AA batteries.