The Insanely Great Story of the Apple Newton (An Alternate History)
Hi everybody, I'm working on an alternate history where the Newton lives and since it's a little outside the usual alternate history fare I'm plugging it here where Newton fans might enjoy it.
It's over at the Alternate History Discussion Board, specifically The Insanely Great Story of the Apple Newton.
An Alternate History is something like What If the Nazi's won WW2? You establish the one change that makes this more likely (say Churchill getting killed by the cab in New York, in 1931 as he almost was in real life), this is called the point of divergence (POD), and then work with butterflies (chaos theory) to see what happens after your change. Say if Churchill was dead Halifax becomes Prime Minister and the UK signs a peace treaty with Germany. No Britain and no USA means Germany beats the Russians. Etc?.
Anyway, the first post I'll copy over here, to suck people in and get comments
.
What if the Apple Newton had lived up to its promise? The Newton was, and is, revolutionary:
The original Newton project goal was to reinvent personal computing, and then reinvent application development with ?Dylan? a brand new very advanced programming language (for example it had ?managed code?, the same idea Microsoft used for C# a decade later, which basically meant code executed on a virtual machine for both security and programmer convenience).
Apple moved to a smaller form factor for the Newton (it was supposed to be tablet size) and Dylan was replaced by NewtonScript?which was still pretty good, but not revolutionary. Likewise they gave up the reinvention of personal computing thing to make it a PDA?Personal Digital Assistant. Constraints forced on them without Dylan, and with slower (smaller) hardware.
What if a later launch means Dylan is kept, and the smaller form factor doesn?t impact on their goal?
IOTL (In Our TImeline) John Scully got forced out because of poor stock performance. He was followed by two people before Steve Jobs returned, Michael Spindler who didn?t like the Newton and Gil Amelio who did (Spindler sucked, Amelio did a lot of the work needed for Apple to do as well as it did under Jobs). If John Scully stays longer, the Newton gets more love. Or, if Scully is replaced by somebody else the Newton gets more love.
Our point of divergence centres around a man named Jean-Louis Gassée. He left when Scully did (because he knew Spindler was getting the top job) and took with him a number of quality Apple people, including Steve Sakoman?the guy in charge of the Newton project. Furthermore Gassée developed BeOS upon leaving Apple (and one thing Apple needed in the 90s was a new operating system) and is very much a manager, but also a visionary. Outside of Steve Jobs (who needs his exile from Apple to mellow) he?s probably the best guy to run the joint.
Furthermore Gassée believed in third party development, upgradability and expandability?all three of them in direct contrast to Steve Jobs, which makes him a nearly ideal partner later in the timeline. Note the iPhone, for instance, compared to the Newton. The Newton has card slots, can be upgraded (and were), and had a SDK for third party developers. The iPhone has none of those things.
Heck Gassée was even one of the people behind the Newton project & the Pocket Crystal project (think networked PDA that talks to other Pocket Crystal?s around it). Pocket Crystal got spun off as General Magic, but it could have stayed and if it had many of Apple?s best people would have also stayed (Andy Hertzfeld, for instance, one of the creators of the Mac, plus people like Bill Atkinson & Darin Adler). Especially because the Newton & the Pocket Crystal wound up very similar when the Newton was shrunk and Dylan was tossed.
So if he stays it?s entirely possible to change the entire course of Apple for the 90s, not to mention the Newton. Perhaps not the sales implications, mostly, but certainly the fundamentals Apple will posses post-Windows 95 will be much better.
Long Term Implications
Furthermore a stronger Apple in the 90s may mean Microsoft innovates instead of stagnating, which would provide general overall benefits to software and?especially?the internet, given Internet Explorer?s inability to follow web standards.
Etc?.
POD:
Jean-Louis Gassée doesn?t ship the Mac Portable in 1989. It was a rare misstep for the man, and I think we can alter his course. (Essentially the Mac Portable was a 16 pound portable desktop. Nobody wanted to lug it around.) Instead let?s say that he takes a more active role in the Newton group and merges Pocket Crystal in with it?giving the device an additional communications focus. Without the Mac Portable blotching his record he wins the silent war against Spindler.
In 1990 Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and by 1992 there were 4.5 copies of Windows in use for every Mac in use: Apple?s share price dropped by 20%, and they had only their second quarterly loss in history. IOTL this meant the Board of Directors forced Scully out and put the (horrible) Spindler in his place. ITTL (In This Timeline, i.e. the alternate one) Apple will force Scully out, and replace him with Gassée.
Postscript:
The title for this timeline comes from The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made by Andy Hertzfeld. Excellent book.
It's over at the Alternate History Discussion Board, specifically The Insanely Great Story of the Apple Newton.
An Alternate History is something like What If the Nazi's won WW2? You establish the one change that makes this more likely (say Churchill getting killed by the cab in New York, in 1931 as he almost was in real life), this is called the point of divergence (POD), and then work with butterflies (chaos theory) to see what happens after your change. Say if Churchill was dead Halifax becomes Prime Minister and the UK signs a peace treaty with Germany. No Britain and no USA means Germany beats the Russians. Etc?.
Anyway, the first post I'll copy over here, to suck people in and get comments
.What if the Apple Newton had lived up to its promise? The Newton was, and is, revolutionary:
- 24 hours of continuous battery life.
- Excellent handwriting recognition.
- ?Data soup? information storage, allowing all programs access to, and understanding of, all other programs data.
- A fantastic operating system. Think of how much better the iPhone?s OS is than other phones, that?s at least how much better NewtonOS was then anything in its time. Including, at least in ease of use, a desktop in a lot of regards.
The original Newton project goal was to reinvent personal computing, and then reinvent application development with ?Dylan? a brand new very advanced programming language (for example it had ?managed code?, the same idea Microsoft used for C# a decade later, which basically meant code executed on a virtual machine for both security and programmer convenience).
Apple moved to a smaller form factor for the Newton (it was supposed to be tablet size) and Dylan was replaced by NewtonScript?which was still pretty good, but not revolutionary. Likewise they gave up the reinvention of personal computing thing to make it a PDA?Personal Digital Assistant. Constraints forced on them without Dylan, and with slower (smaller) hardware.
What if a later launch means Dylan is kept, and the smaller form factor doesn?t impact on their goal?
- Better applications & an actual laptop replacement sometime in 1994? (IOTL applications didn?t really take off until NewtonOS 2.0 in late 1995 and it didn?t become a proper laptop replacement until MessagePad 2000/2100 with NewtonOS 2.1 in early 1997.)
- Likewise the later launch also means the Newton?s originally poor handwriting may be as good as the NewtonOS 2.0 version which is still considered some of the best handwriting recognition in the world.
- Better syncing. A big reason Palm Pilots did so well was that they had excellent syncing, and the Newton did not. A later launch may help.
- Better hardware. A year later gives it much better hardware, which allows them to meet ?future of computing? goal in smaller package instead of giving up and going to the PDA.
IOTL (In Our TImeline) John Scully got forced out because of poor stock performance. He was followed by two people before Steve Jobs returned, Michael Spindler who didn?t like the Newton and Gil Amelio who did (Spindler sucked, Amelio did a lot of the work needed for Apple to do as well as it did under Jobs). If John Scully stays longer, the Newton gets more love. Or, if Scully is replaced by somebody else the Newton gets more love.
Our point of divergence centres around a man named Jean-Louis Gassée. He left when Scully did (because he knew Spindler was getting the top job) and took with him a number of quality Apple people, including Steve Sakoman?the guy in charge of the Newton project. Furthermore Gassée developed BeOS upon leaving Apple (and one thing Apple needed in the 90s was a new operating system) and is very much a manager, but also a visionary. Outside of Steve Jobs (who needs his exile from Apple to mellow) he?s probably the best guy to run the joint.
Furthermore Gassée believed in third party development, upgradability and expandability?all three of them in direct contrast to Steve Jobs, which makes him a nearly ideal partner later in the timeline. Note the iPhone, for instance, compared to the Newton. The Newton has card slots, can be upgraded (and were), and had a SDK for third party developers. The iPhone has none of those things.
Heck Gassée was even one of the people behind the Newton project & the Pocket Crystal project (think networked PDA that talks to other Pocket Crystal?s around it). Pocket Crystal got spun off as General Magic, but it could have stayed and if it had many of Apple?s best people would have also stayed (Andy Hertzfeld, for instance, one of the creators of the Mac, plus people like Bill Atkinson & Darin Adler). Especially because the Newton & the Pocket Crystal wound up very similar when the Newton was shrunk and Dylan was tossed.
So if he stays it?s entirely possible to change the entire course of Apple for the 90s, not to mention the Newton. Perhaps not the sales implications, mostly, but certainly the fundamentals Apple will posses post-Windows 95 will be much better.
Long Term Implications
- Newton, unlike Palm, will likely embrace mobile phone technology (because of the Pocket Crystal project DNA) and lead the smartphone revolution.
- Newton will provide a stripped down subnotebook (OTL's eMate) that's cheap (unlike modern subnotebooks), has a long battery life (unlike Palm's cancelled Foleo of OTL), and a great machine for writing.
- Newton provides Apple with a tablet form once it's scaled upwards.
- Jean-Lousie Gassée provides Apple with proper management in 1993 instead of Gil Amelio in 1997. Gassée builds a next generation operating system throughout the 90s instead of the failure of Copland, and Apple having to buy Be or Next. Gassée keeps the Newton alive. Steve Jobs likes Gassée and they compliment each other, so if Jobs comes back ITTL they?re a good match.
Furthermore a stronger Apple in the 90s may mean Microsoft innovates instead of stagnating, which would provide general overall benefits to software and?especially?the internet, given Internet Explorer?s inability to follow web standards.
Etc?.
POD:
Jean-Louis Gassée doesn?t ship the Mac Portable in 1989. It was a rare misstep for the man, and I think we can alter his course. (Essentially the Mac Portable was a 16 pound portable desktop. Nobody wanted to lug it around.) Instead let?s say that he takes a more active role in the Newton group and merges Pocket Crystal in with it?giving the device an additional communications focus. Without the Mac Portable blotching his record he wins the silent war against Spindler.
In 1990 Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and by 1992 there were 4.5 copies of Windows in use for every Mac in use: Apple?s share price dropped by 20%, and they had only their second quarterly loss in history. IOTL this meant the Board of Directors forced Scully out and put the (horrible) Spindler in his place. ITTL (In This Timeline, i.e. the alternate one) Apple will force Scully out, and replace him with Gassée.
Postscript:
The title for this timeline comes from The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac was Made by Andy Hertzfeld. Excellent book.
Comments
Ideally I'd like to save the Dylan programming language (should I, though?) for the Newton and its big brother Ralph for Pink. Are they really good? Should I save them, or wait for something else?
With any luck a Newton in 1994 with NewtonOS 2.0 handwriting abilities + 1994 hardware + Dylan is a much more attractive starting out platform. Especially if Scully doesn't blab his big mouth about it.
I'd like to ship Pink sometime in the mid 90s with Ralph and hopefully NuKernel, maybe some BeOS type things, other Apple tech that went nowhere. Perhaps I'm wrong, feel free to educate me.
The desktop Mac line needs redoing (frogdesign is going to stay on, I think) as there's a million models.
Without the Mac Portable will enough lessons be learned for the PowerBook?
I'd like Pink not to be closed off, and hence have the various technologies Apple was working on (NewtonOS, for instance) part of it.
CPU platforms: Probably still ARM, eventually, for the Newton, but is there any way Motorola/IBM can do better with PowerPC in a wider fashion? i.e. Roughly match Intel's development dollars, perhaps via more alternate computing platforms?
Of course all of it must be plausible, and within Gassée's personality (+ General Magic/Be Inc. people who will stay in this timeline?Sakoman, Hertzfeld, Atkinson, etc?).
I've read the various books and other stuff around so I have a general understanding, but if anyone is willing to help me with the finer details that'd be great.