New Apple Newton?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Hello all,



I am surprised that Apple has not come out with a new Newton.



I think that it would be a good move to introduce one that has a Version of Panther made just for PDAs.

With all the iLife programs and .mac this could be real cool!



I know I would buy one.



How about you?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    casecomcasecom Posts: 314member
    Back about four years ago you'd see threads all the time about how Apple should come out with a PDA, bring back the Newton, etc. Everyone was on the edge of their chair waiting for the new model from Palm, etc.



    Now hardly anyone talks about PDAs anymore. I can't remember the last time i read a review of a new PDA. Do they still sell? Or does everyone spend their gadget money on camera phones instead?
  • Reply 2 of 18
    resres Posts: 711member
    I'm sure that there will be a whole bunch of post of the "Oh not again" and "it's been discussed a million times..." category, but I'm with you.



    The technology has finally caught up with the idea, and I think that the time is about right for a totally revised Newton.



    Imagine a Newton mkII abou this size:









    running a slim version of OSX. If they could do it for $500 or less would certainly get one get one.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    resres Posts: 711member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CaseCom



    -snip-

    Now hardly anyone talks about PDAs anymore. I can't remember the last time i read a review of a new PDA. Do they still sell? Or does everyone spend their gadget money on camera phones instead?




    PDAs sales have gone down a bit this year (about 2.2 million shipped in the first quarter). That is if you don't count PDA/cellphone combinations.



    People really don't want to carry more then one device, and I really think that over the next few years there will be an almost total convergence of cellphones/camera/PDA/multimedia players.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    admactaniumadmactanium Posts: 812member
    i really think they shifted their focus to a phone. i'm not saying they'll actually sell a phone but the pda market is pretty dead these days. most of everything that people needed from pda's are in their phones now. if someone made a killer phone though it would the end of the dark times. all of them are screwy in some small way.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    talksense101talksense101 Posts: 1,738member
    yup. what they said: pdas are out, pda/cell phone combos are in.
  • Reply 6 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by talksense101

    yup. what they said: pdas are out, pda/cell phone combos are in.



    Exactly. And give me a tri-GSM/3G enabled Newton, and Ill buy one in an instant.
  • Reply 7 of 18
    shawkshawk Posts: 116member
    How would Apple add a phone to the iPod / miniPod?

    If you had a phone, how could you use it to directly access your computer?

    And make it work simply and intuitively.



    Voice recognition / speech synthesis / voip?

    Two little microphones added to the headphone cords?

    Anything else?



    Nope. Ask it to call somebody. Ask it to look something up.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    What happened to Fran?
  • Reply 9 of 18
    What about those of us that want to run office apps, quicken or file-maker and yet don't want a six pound device to carry around? Video phones are pretty weak when it comes to really integrating address books, to do lists and calendars. I see little comparison between a phone with a camera and feeble addressing features and a PDA let alone one that apple would make which undoubtedly would integrate GSM, satellite nav. etc. and exactly how handy is a 2k camera anyway. Talk about anemic features! Despite what the ads imply I haven't had to take too many shots of gnomes steeling my under shorts or gigantic Martian space craft. Far as I can tell it's a feature only good for voyeurs intent on getting a picture of the girl they're stalking. Cell phone PDA's hot, only because of the strength of the marketing force behind them!
  • Reply 10 of 18
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shawk

    How would Apple add a phone to the iPod / miniPod?



    We are talking Newton, not iPod.

    Quote:

    If you had a phone, how could you use it to directly access your computer?



    Firewire/Airport.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spliff monkey

    What about those of us that want to run office apps, quicken or file-maker and yet don't want a six pound device to carry around? Video phones are pretty weak when it comes to really integrating address books, to do lists and calendars. I see little comparison between a phone with a camera and feeble addressing features and a PDA let alone one that apple would make which undoubtedly would integrate GSM, satellite nav. etc. and exactly how handy is a 2k camera anyway. Talk about anemic features! Despite what the ads imply I haven't had to take too many shots of gnomes steeling my under shorts or gigantic Martian space craft. Far as I can tell it's a feature only good for voyeurs intent on getting a picture of the girl they're stalking. Cell phone PDA's hot, only because of the strength of the marketing force behind them!



    Treo 600. I just got one and love it. It works with .doc and .xls files natively, runs Pocket Quicken and FileMaker, has a great contact manager, is fully GSM/GPRS Class 10 compliant, can be hooked up to a GPS system, and has a decent VGA camera. It sounds like exactly what you want.



    Now, as a Newton user, the one thing I do not want to see is some kind of OSX lite in a hand held. Palm sized computer have completely different usage patterns and interface requirements. If Apple wanted to clean up NewtonOS 2.1, add the color support (which was developed, it was just waiting on the hardware), add GSM, GPRS, EDGE, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, IrDA, a 4GB HDD, keep the 2 full sized PCMCIA slots, a SDIO slot or two, and kept the 24 hour battery life that my MP 2100 has I would buy it in a second at almost any price. Other than that, don't tarnish the Newton's reputation and greatness by squeezing some dumbed down OSX GUI into a compromised platform.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    dead end thread.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by HOM

    Now, as a Newton user, the one thing I do not want to see is some kind of OSX lite in a hand held. Palm sized computer have completely different usage patterns and interface requirements. If Apple wanted to clean up NewtonOS 2.1, add the color support (which was developed, it was just waiting on the hardware), add GSM, GPRS, EDGE, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, IrDA, a 4GB HDD, keep the 2 full sized PCMCIA slots, a SDIO slot or two, and kept the 24 hour battery life that my MP 2100 has I would buy it in a second at almost any price. Other than that, don't tarnish the Newton's reputation and greatness by squeezing some dumbed down OSX GUI into a compromised platform.



    OTOH, take a look at the Mac GUI from the perspective of a Newton user... you've got a Dock, you've got sheets, you've got write-anywhere-HWR in Ink, you've got a move towards common data repositories that any app can access (soups on the Newton, AddressBook/iCal/etc on Mac)...



    It's really not that far off anymore, and getting closer all the time.



    I think that a slightly modified Aqua on a high resolution screen would be more than doable as a handheld UI.
  • Reply 14 of 18
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    OTOH, take a look at the Mac GUI from the perspective of a Newton user... you've got a Dock, you've got sheets, you've got write-anywhere-HWR in Ink, you've got a move towards common data repositories that any app can access (soups on the Newton, AddressBook/iCal/etc on Mac)...



    It's really not that far off anymore, and getting closer all the time.



    I think that a slightly modified Aqua on a high resolution screen would be more than doable as a handheld UI.




    I didn't even think about it like that until now. You are absolutely right that OSX is becoming more Newton like and I would like to attribute that to the Gecko team being right from the start.



    However, OSX is still a mouse and keyboard interface. I don't doubt that OSX and Quartz could be made to run on a small tablet device, I'm not sure that it would be efficient. OSX is too menu driven to really make it as a tablet interface. The beauty of the Newton UI was that it was almost completely devoid of menus. The only menu that I can think of that was included in almost any application was the routing menu, the name of which was recently pointed out to me by you.



    I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think a traditional desktop GUI works as a tablet GUI.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by HOM

    I didn't even think about it like that until now. You are absolutely right that OSX is becoming more Newton like and I would like to attribute that to the Gecko team being right from the start.



    However, OSX is still a mouse and keyboard interface. I don't doubt that OSX and Quartz could be made to run on a small tablet device, I'm not sure that it would be efficient. OSX is too menu driven to really make it as a tablet interface. The beauty of the Newton UI was that it was almost completely devoid of menus. The only menu that I can think of that was included in almost any application was the routing menu, the name of which was recently pointed out to me by you.




    True, but it was only the use of pervasive soup viewing that eliminated the need for a File menu... Edit was handled mostly by select, drag, anchor actions... etc. (The latter I'd love to see implemented on MacOS X... would make the old NeXT shelf look lame in comparison. )



    Not only that, but most Newton apps were *simple*... as in stripped down. Not a lot of functionality in many ways. MacOS X apps tend to be richer, but still have pretty simple interfaces that a pen could be used for without much problem.



    I think it's more than doable. Heck, put your monitor display to 800x600 and try it! That's about the size of an A5 sized handheld at 110dpi... which is a pretty standard and doable screen resolution/size, therefore more affordable.



    You have to be selective of what apps you run (Photoshop or Word is painful), but many are just fine.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by knmphotography

    ....With ALL the iLife programs and .mac this could be real cool!



    I know I would buy one.



    How about you?




    iDVD on a PDA? whats the point?
  • Reply 17 of 18
    fran441fran441 Posts: 3,715member
    I wish that it would happen but I've resigned myself to the fact that Apple has no intention of releasing another PDA or handheld computer in the near future. As much as I'd love to be proved wrong, I just don't see it happening.
  • Reply 18 of 18
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    I dont know, look back 4 years, what if I had told you that apple would have the top online music store and the best mp3/aac player going? And panther, what if I set an aluminum 15 inch power book next to the pismos from 4 years ago, panther next to os9, Apple is makeing inroads where no one thought they could, their PDA was the best, they were just 3 years ahead of the market
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